Harry Potter - Three and Seven
by Neale
Summary: Another AU Harry Potter story. The theme is time travel/do-over, HP/HG/LL. The AD/MW/RW/GW/VD/OD/DD/MD bashing/flaying will be prevalent.
1. Harry Potter - Three and Seven

**I was having trouble progressing any of my existing stories again so I decided to throw out the latest crazy story idea that came into my head.**

 **As with all my HP stories, it's AU, the core couple is 'arry an 'ermione, though Luna's also there from the start in this one, and she's five months older so that her birthday is about a week before Hermione's to make the core idea work. Also as per usual, if you like Albus Ankles Dumbledore, Molly the Moll Weasley and her two youngest, the Dursleys and a few other characters who are similar, you won't like this, so do yourself a favour and give it a miss. And I've borrowed a few AU character names and themes from my other HP stories.**

 **Usual disclaimers, no rights to existing characters, this is not JKR's HP, the real world or a Disney Princess story and there will probably be a few changes in the first hour or so after it's posted because things invariably look different in the published version and I don't always like the way it came out.**

Harry woke up, in the dark and unable to breath and started flailing about in a panic, trying to get out of wherever he was. This tore the garbage bag he was in and he grabbed at the edges of the hole to tear the bag open, sit up and tried to fill his lungs with air. That was when he realised what must have woken him, because he was jabbed in the side…. again, apparently…. and he realised that there was another garbage bag beside him that someone was flailing about in. He grabbed the bag and tore it open, letting the girl inside it sit up and start gulping air as he was… it was Hermione!

Once they'd stopped panicking about suffocating and clinging to each other, it suddenly registered that they weren't twenty one any more, they were little children again. That in turn made them realise that the last thing they recalled about being twenty one was the hated voice of their vindictive bitch of a mother in law…. "I do hope you enjoyed my _special_ Twenty First birthday cake Harry _Dear…_ but we don't need you…. _or_ the Mudblood….. any more, now that my Ginny is the mother of the Heir to the House of Potter, so you're just getting in the way of our living the lives we were meant to. No one could expect my Ronald to stay shackled to a _Mudblood_ who refuses to make any effort to be a proper wife for him after the Golden Trio had been broken up by your tragic death, so she had to go as well…. just like Arthur and his irritating sons in that _unfortunate_ Death Eater attack at Ronald's wedding." They'd faded away to the bitch's grating cackle, accompanied by Ginny's similar cackle and Ron's donkey bray of a laugh.

Okay, their mother in law and _loving_ spouses had obviously poisoned them on someone's Twenty First birthday, so what were they doing here?

The events that brought _him_ here at least were coming back to Harry, he'd stupidly asked if he could have a little more to eat and Uncle Vernon had gone berserk and started hitting him hard enough to throw him around the room, the last thing he remembered was his Dear Aunt Petunia shrieking…. "Oh my god Vernon, you've killed the Freak! What are we going to do when the other one comes looking for him?"

When he told Hermione that she nodded. "My parents had to bring me with them when they came up here for a regional meeting of the dentists' association tonight because they couldn't get anyone to watch me. They sent me off to the library so that I wouldn't embarrass them when they were meeting important people there and a car came careening around the corner and hit me when I was crossing the street…"

She suddenly stopped and checked herself over, but aside from her torn and bloodstained dress and the fact that she was covered in blood and dirt, there was nothing wrong with her, so she waved a hand over herself and Harry to repair and clean their clothing and vanish the dirt and blood that they were both covered with…. That was when they realised that the air was positively thrumming with energy. Harry clambered to his feet and helped Hermione up and they headed in the direction of lights that they could see through the trees. That was how they discovered that they'd been dumped in a copse of trees on the Sunbury Golf Course, and with Hermione's encyclopaedic memory she twigged as to where all that energy was coming from. "Of course! We're right on the Canterbury Ley Line, but I don't remember seeing any reports of it ever being anything like this powerful before."

Okay, they knew when and where they were, and possibly how they'd been brought back from the brink of death, if not from dead itself, but nothing was telling them why they'd been sent back from when they'd been killed at Twenty One to when they were killed at Seven to be revived. Hermione was musing out aloud. "Twenty One is a result of Three times Seven. We've been sent back to the age of Seven, which is a magical number, and so is Three, but how does it fit..."

She suddenly stopped and turned to Harry. "Oh no… Luna! It was _her_ Twenty First birthday party! They killed her too!"

At that Harry realised that he'd somehow blocked out the fact that their best friend Luna had been there as well, and Molly was saying with obvious sarcasm. "I'm so sorry Luna Dear, but I needed something that would get these two here for a surprise party and your birthday was the perfect opportunity…." then she cackled "But there's no place in our world for something like you _either_! Quite aside from all your ridiculous ideas and made up creatures, those flashes of true sight that you have sometimes could have caused a lot of trouble for us if you'd suddenly started talking about us getting rid of these two."

When he said what he'd remembered Hermione nodded, then went on. "I'd lay money on the fact that Luna has come back as well Harry, which means that there _has_ to be something or someone behind all of it…. But why?…."

She stopped and looked at him again. "We've been sent back to fix everything that happened last time Harry!"

Harry spat out. "Shite! Didn't we go through enough last time? Why does it always have to be me… us?"

She hugged him and murmured into his shoulder. "I don't know why they've sent back Luna and me, but you seem to be the Fates' favourite chew toy Harry…. you _know_ that it was always going to be you!"

She felt him nod resignedly as he sighed. "Yeah I know, I just wish they'd find themselves a new chew toy Mione….. At least we'll have someone worthwhile with us to help save this damned world this time and not the walking stomach."

* * *

At that point they saw a bicycle heading towards them and retreated into the copse again. Once the security guard on the bicycle had passed, Harry took Hermione's hand and Goblin apparated them both into the Gringotts banking chamber. It wasn't long before they were surrounded by the expected hedge of spear tips and axes and goblins demanding to know how they'd gotten in there, but there was silence when Harry barked in Common Goblin. " _ **Quiet!**_ _Someone go and tell Over Chieftain Gringott that_ _Duke_ _Potter is here to see him!…._ "

When no-one moved or said anything, just staring at him in shock, he barked again. " _Are you all deaf?_ _ **YOU!**_ _Go to Over Chieftain Gringott and give him my message_ _ **NOW!**_ "

As the Goblin warrior ran to do as he was told, he was wondering what in the Seven Hells was making him take orders from a human, but knew instinctively that he was doing the right thing.

Even so, he was shocked when instead of taking his head off for waking him in the middle of the night at the orders of a human, the Over Chieftain grabbed the first leggings and tunic that came to hand and threw them on as quickly as he could, demanding to know. " _Where is he?_ "

The other Goblins were just as shocked when the Over Chieftain arrived at the run and skidded to a halt in front of the humans, then _bowed_ low to the male, saying " _I greet you Duke Potter. I am quite relieved to see you alive and well, as_ _our_ _instruments indicated your death earlier tonight._ " in High Goblin (which the warriors didn't understand).

Harry returned the bow, replying in High Goblin. " _I greet you Over Chieftain Gringott. Unless I am mistaken, y_ _our i_ _nstruments were correct, but I believe that this_ _i_ _s_ _all_ _part of some plan of the_ _Fate_ _s, because my_ _soul_ _mates and I were killed_ _on this day_ _fourteen years_ _in the future_ _and two of us_ _at least_ _have been_ _cast_ _back to occupy our recently killed bodies here._ "

" _Who killed you fourteen years from now, who killed you tonight,_ _what happened to your other mate_ _and how did you know how to apparate in here and call for me_ _?_ "

" _We were all killed_ _o_ _n_ _my other soul mate_ _Luna_ _Lovegood,_ _the Countess Hufflepuff_ _'s, Twenty First birthday_ _by Molly Weasley and her two youngest children, Hermione's husband Ronald Weasley and my wife Ginevra Potter..._ _W_ _e should have been suspicious when_ _Moll_ _y_ _insisted on having_ _us all over for_ _a surprise party for Luna's_ _Twenty First_ _birthday_ _because they_ _have_ _always ridiculed her, but I at least believed that_ _she_ _was_ _being nice_ _because Luna worked with Hermione and she was Hermione and my closest friend_ _. Hermione and I were_ _both_ _killed tonight,_ _which is Luna's_ _ **Seventh**_ _birthday,_ _by my_ _non magical maternal_ _Uncle, Vernon Dursley. I do no_ _t yet_ _know what_ _has_ _happened to Luna,_ _she_ _often_ _exist_ _s on both sides of the veil so hopefully her body here did n_ _o_ _t need to die for her to_ _be sent_ _back. As for_ _how I knew how_ _to apparate us into the banking chamber and call for you Over Chieftain, I_ _have no idea_ _, because I d_ _o_ _not_ _recall_ _know_ _ing_ _anything_ _of who I truly was, my connection to the People or how to Goblin apparate or speak High Goblin, or Low Goblin for that matter,_ _ **or**_ _the fact that Hermione and Luna were my soul mates_ _in the world we have been_ _cast back_ _from. I was an Auror and I often worked with Hermione and Luna in the Department of Mysteries on my investigations. I must presume that the Fates gave me this information to enable us to get on the right track to fix things this time,_ _because_ _as_ _Hermione_ _has_ _said, I appear to be the Fates' favourite chew toy._ "

Gringott barked a laugh at that. " _From what you have told me Duke Potter, she may well be right…. But she does not appear to understand what we are saying so perhaps you should introduce us and then we can go back to my chambers and see what has happened to your other mate."_

Harry nodded and turned to Hermione. "Hermione, may I present Over Chieftain Gringott the Seventh, Leader of the Goblin Nation of the Britain and Director of the Gringotts Banks that control the finances of the Magical World and its Barclays Bank subsidiary in the Non Magical World…."

He then turned to Gringott. "Over Chieftain Gringott, may I present Lady Hermione Jean Granger, the Countess Ravenclaw-Dagworth, the brightest witch of our generation and the elder of my two soul mates."

Hermione spun to stare at him in shock at that introduction, because it was only when he said it that she realised that he was correct on all points.

Gringott shocked the Goblin Warriors present even more when he bowed low to Hermione. "It is my great pleasure to meet you Lady Hermione, and I look forward to our having a long and mutually beneficial relationship. I realise that this must all be quite a shock to you, so may I suggest that we retire to my chambers so that Duke Potter and I can fill you in on the your position in our world and we can confirm that your other soul mate, the Lady Luna, is alright?"

Hermione curtsied to him on autopilot and then allowed Harry to take her by the hand and lead her off, only half registering the fact that he obviously knew where he was going or that he'd pressed a cup of mulled Butterbeer into her hands after he sat her down on a couch in Gringott's chambers.

* * *

Harry had managed to get her to drink some of the Butterbeer and eat some of the food that had been laid out for them on the table in front of the couch by the time Gringott returned, dressed as one would expect the leader of the Goblin Nation and the Magical World's Banks to be dressed, with Luna and her parents. Gringott got himself a drink rather stronger than what the children were having and settled down in an armchair across from the two couches to wait for the children to finish assuring each other they were okay, waving Luna's parents to a seat on the second couch. Luna had also had a near death experience earlier that night as she was caught in the blast when one of her mother's experiments went wrong, and like the others she'd come back remembering how they were poisoned and killed by the Weasleys on her Twenty First birthday.

When the three children had taken their seats on the couch, with the girls sitting either side of Harry holding his hands, Gringott began to speak. "I can see from the look in her eye that Lady Luna knows what I am about to tell you… Xenophilius have you also seen this, and have you told your wife Pandora?"

"Xeno and Pan, please, Over Chieftain Gringott, I have seen that we will all be having quite a lot to do with each other so the simpler forms of address will be easier…. As to your question, I have seen some of it and our Luna has told us more, that was why we were expecting your people to arrive."

Gringott nodded. "Good, and I take your point about forms of address, so here in my chambers you may all call me Gringott, but unfortunately in front of my people I will have to maintain my image as the leader."

"Very well, I will primarily address my explanation to the Lady Hermione, but if anyone else requires clarification on any points speak up..." Everyone nodded and he went on.

"I can see that you have accepted the Duke's explanation that the three of you are soul mates my Lady, so I will not waste time trying to explain that, I will focus on his position in our world and what I see as being the direction we need to go in to help prepare the three of you for what is in front of you…."

Hermione nodded. "When Duke Potter..." Harry went to say something and Gringott smiled. " _ **Harry**_ , accepts his titles, he will officially be the head of two of the oldest and most powerful families in Magical Britain, and two others that are almost as powerful. His Potter bloodline goes back to before the first Druids in Britain, when the _aes sídhe_ mixed their blood with the humans to create magical beings who could guide humans down a better path than the one they appeared to be taking. For the last two and a half millennia, Harry's line has worked to keep the humans moving forward, and has helped protect the fae from humans as well. In the late Sixth Century, his family's magical bloodline became Noble in Owain mab Urien after Urien Rheged took Morgan Le Fey as his Queen and as their eldest son, Owain became the next King of Rheged. In the Ninth Century, the Kings of Britain bestowed the title of Earl of the county palatine of Hen Ogledd, essentially 'Earl of the Old North', on the Head of the Potter line to solicit the Druids' support in dealing with their enemies. Then, when the title of Duke came into use in Britain in the Fourteenth Century, the Earl of Hen Ogledd's title was commuted to the Duke of Hen Ogledd by Edward the Third in an attempt to create a viable foundation for Magical Britain and the County became a Duchy Palatine. They have held both the title and Duchy since then, though their family name has changed to Potter. Another one of the original Druid families were the Peverells, they also became Noble in the Sixth Century and in the early Ninth Century, the Kings of Britain bestowed the title of Earl of the County Palatine of Mercia on the Head of the Peverell line to solicit their support in the Midlands, and Edward the Third commuted that to the Duke and Duchy Palatine of Mercia as well. The Wizarding World believes the House of Peverell to be extinct, but they are wrong, because the Peverell line was merged with the Potter line some time in the Fourteenth Century so the House of Peverell was taken over by the Potters, and Harry is also the direct descendent of Noble and Most Ancient Houses of Gryffindor and Slytherin through his parents. This means that Harry only has to accept his titles to formalise the fact that he is Duke Potter-Peverell and Head of the Most Noble and Most Ancient Houses of Potter and Peverell, and the Earl Gryffindor-Slytherin and Head of the Noble and Most Ancient Houses of Gryffindor and Slytherin ….." Gringott paused and frowned, and they found that a Goblin frown can be almost as intimidating as a Goblin smile.

"Harry is _also_ second in line to the titles of the Duke of Powrys and Wessex and Head of the Most Noble and Most Ancient Houses of Black and Glynn, which were the other two original Druid Lord families who had their titles commuted to Duke and County Palatines made into a Duchy Palatines. We are trying to get to the bottom of that because according to the rules of the Wizarding World, those titles should have been stripped from the first in line for those titles, who has named Harry as his Heir, if he was guilty of what the Wizards say he was guilty of. But aside from his Noble titles, Harry is the Head of a number of Most Ancient and Ancient Druid Houses, the most notable of those being the Most Ancient Druid Houses of Le Fay and Emrys, and as I said, Harry's family have been the protectors of the fae for over two and a half thousand years, so they own much of the business enterprises that the fae are involved in. One of Harry's ancestors was responsible for getting Gringotts Bank and the Goblin Nation of Britain created and as a result of that the Goblin Nations have allotted nearly half ownership of the Gringotts Banks and the subsidiary we created at the end of the Seventeenth Century to manage our dealings in the non magical human world, Barclays Bank, to the House of Potter. This means that the Potter family is far wealthier than the Wizards know, though what they do know about has been enough to have them trying to get their hands on the Potters' money since the night the previous Lord and Lady Potter were killed."

"I know that you didn't miss what Harry introduced you as… would you like that explained?"

"Yes Please!"

"Very well, we will need to perform inheritance tests to confirm it, but I am sure that it will confirm the information that you have been given, because the Fates appear to be stacking the deck this time to ensure that they get the result that they are after. The Inheritance test will show who they came from, but I suspect that we will find that your Countess Ravenclaw title has come through your mother, because there has never been any indication of a link to Ravenclaw in the Dagworth or Dagworth-Granger bloodlines, which the Magical County of East Anglia, including Norfolk, Suffolk, Essex, Middlesex and Cambridgeshire as it it was defined at the largest extent of East Anglia, has come to you through…..."

He stopped and looked at Luna then. "Mind you, there was never any indication of any significant links between the Lovegood or Cathbad lines and the Hufflepuff line either, and our little Luna is apparently Countess Hufflepuff now, so who knows what games the Fates are playing? But as with Harry, you will have a number of Druid Houses as well, I know for a fact that there are some Ancient Druid Houses attached to the House of Dagworth-Granger, and I would be very surprised if there weren't older and more powerful Druid Houses attached to the House of Ravenclaw… On the matter of the three of you being soul mates, we do not need to do any testing because I can see the links between you…."

* * *

Xeno nodded at that, because he could see the links between them quite clearly too, but Gringott faltered then, and it was plain to see that he didn't want to pass on some other news. This was starting to frighten Hermione and she blurted out. "What is it Uncle Gringott?"

As a newspaperman, Xeno dearly wished that he could share the image of Gringott at that point, because no-one had ever heard of Director Gringott, Head of Gringotts and the Goblin Nation of Britain, being _flustered_ , but that was definitely what he was!

Xeno and Pandora shared a smile at the way this sweet child had thrown the Leader of the Goblins (it was well known that he was the most influential of the Goblin leaders) off by calling him 'Uncle'. What they didn't know was that it wasn't the first time a human child had called him that, but it _was_ the first time anyone but a Potter infant had.

In her worry, Hermione missed all this and said it again. "What is it Uncle Gringott, _please_ tell me!"

That was enough to pull him out of his state and he gave her a kindly look (well a kindly _Goblin_ look, it would have frightened most people). "It is your parents Lady Hermione…. After reporting that you had gone missing, they reportedly just went home as if nothing were wrong and they have not called the human police to ask for more news of you since then… Do you want to be taken home with some of our healers to check on them? Something must have been done to them to just leave like that, there is no way that any parent could forget their child like that…."

Hermione tried to speak, and then suddenly threw herself into Harry's arms to cry her eyes out. When she had control of herself again, she turned back to Gringott and shook her head at him.

"No Uncle Gringott, that will be _exactly_ what they're trying to do. They've seen me as little more than a potential embarrassment since I started calling my toys to me as a baby… They wouldn't let me go out and play with other children or go to pre-school for fear that I'd do something else unnatural which would reflect badly on them. By the time I started school, I was years ahead of the other children because studying was the only thing I was allowed to do, and they gave me a lecture about making sure I didn't do anything to draw attention to the way I was every morning before I went to school…. No, what they will be doing now is trying to work out how to milk this for the maximum benefit to their image, the poor couple who's darling little girl just disappeared from the room they left her in just next to where they were having their dentists' association meeting. I can assure you that me walking in the door would be the _last_ thing they'd want to see Uncle Gringott, so if you're planning on making somewhere for Harry to live and be trained to get ready to take on this world as I'm sure you are, can you make room for me there too, please?"

At that, Xeno and Pandora saw something even more shocking than a flustered Goblin leader, because Gringott was _crying_! For sure, he was enraged that any parent could do that to a sweet child like this, and they wouldn't be at all surprised to hear of a non magical dentist couple meeting a grizzly fate in the not too distant future, but his heart was obviously breaking for her. When he could speak again, he nodded. "Of course my child, there will _always_ be a place for you in our world!"

No-one felt up to talking after that, so he had someone take them to chambers that had been set up for them for the night, growling in Goblin that if the children wished to stay together for comfort, they were to be allowed to!

Luna just kissed her parents goodbye and skipped after Harry and Hermione, taking Hermione's other hand when she caught up to them.

* * *

The next morning, Harry, Hermione and Luna met two very unusual elves. For a start, they looked nothing like House Elves, as they were between five and five and a half feet tall and had attractive human features. They also spoke much better than any elves they'd met before, but the female tore into Harry for failing to call for them as soon as he was taken to that terrible place. When they'd managed to calm her down, they were properly introduced, she was Efa, while the male was Emyr, he was a few inches taller than Efa and more muscular. Efa and Emyr were mates and they had been accepted for the privilege of being bonded to Harry at birth to care for and protect him, so when the Master and Mistress took him away from Potter Manor when he was less than six months old and then they were killed and he disappeared, it had been terribly hard on them, especially Efa. Once they'd managed to convince Efa that Harry hadn't known how to call for them when he finally left the wards of the cottage at Godrics Hollow, they all sat down to plan how they would manage this. They were all happy to see Hermione looking a lot better after spending a night with her soul mates, but she managed to make Gringott cry again by running up to him and hugging him, with a heartfelt. "Thank you Uncle Gringott!"

Gringott's keen ears caught a snort of Goblin laughter and he fixed the two younger Goblins who always seemed to be with him with a look that would have sent lesser beings running but they just gave him toothy Goblin smiles. Gringott shook his head, he'd obviously been too lenient with them, but what could he do? They were his favourite little sister's sons. He turned to the children and the others. "You may as well meet these two lazy louts now, as you'll be seeing a lot of them…. They'll be our interface when my official duties prevent me from seeing you, which I am afraid will be quite often, they are Balrog and Gamling, my younger sister's sons. My mate and son both died in childbirth and I can have no children of my own so my sister offered her sons to be blood adopted as my sons so that they can take over from me one day….. This is something I've been planning to offer to young Harry since Lord and Lady Potter were killed, but now I want to offer it to all three of you, to blood adopt you into the Gringott family as well. You see there are limits to what we can do for humans, but if you are a Gringott, it is allowable to extend that support considerably… It has been a tradition for the Heads of the House of Potter to do this, but your Grandfather was the last one who did it because something happened to stop your father coming in to do it Harry…."

Harry stepped forward and bowed deeply. "It would be my honour to be adopted into the Gringott Family Over Chieftain Gringott!"

The girls stepped forward to curtsy just as deeply, echoing Harry's words, and within fifteen minutes, all three of them were blood adopted members of the Gringotts Clan. Balrog and Gamling stepped forward to give each of them a warrior's embrace, saying "Welcome to the family cousin!" in High Goblin, which highlighted another problem, because neither of the girls could speak High or Low Goblin yet, but they tabled that as they tackled the more immediate issues, the first being the fact that Harry at least needed to go into an intensive reconstruction process to correct six years of malnutrition and physical abuse, as well as removing the severe bindings that someone (almost certainly Dumbledore) had placed on his growth and magic, and that would take at least a week or two in the time chamber to complete. Gringott cast a critical eye over the girls, swearing to himself because he couldn't tell whether they needed to be put into a similar program.

Pandora shook her head she caught that look. "No Gringott, the girls are fit and healthy examples of Seven and Eight Year old human girls, but while they don't actually _need_ to be corrected, removing any bindings they may have and spending time in the time chamber getting the full reconstruction therapy with Harry would help them be able to face what's in front of the three of them, and if you can offer a training program that will help make them fitter, stronger and faster, that would be worth considering starting them on too."

Gringott nodded musingly. "Yes, now that they're members of the Gringott Clan, we do have something that will prepare them if they are willing to put enough work into it."

He caught the indignant and defiant looks he was getting from the three children, especially the girls, and laughed. "Yes, we will start them all on that as soon as they finish their reconstruction therapy."

* * *

The next order of business was for Xeno and Pandora to sell their house to a fictitious Wizarding couple who would set up monitoring on the Weasley family (to get back at his nephews for laughing at him, he ordered them to be that couple, citing this matter to be too sensitive to trust anyone else with).

At that point, Harry started swearing, using language that definitely wasn't appropriate for a Seven year old, and even though Hermione knew that he was Twenty One on the inside, she still took to task for it until he bit out " _ **The RAT!**_ " Her language was even worse when she got the point of what he was saying.

It took Harry a while to calm down enough to explain that Peter Fucking Pettigrew, the Death Eater who had betrayed his parents to be murdered by Voldemort and then framed his Godfather for killing him and a dozen muggles before scurrying away in his true rat form had been hiding in his rat animagus form with the Weasleys as Percy Weasley's pet rat for years, from soon after he framed Sirius apparently. The adults were having trouble accepting what he and the girls were telling him so in frustration he asked Gringott whether he had anything there that could show human memories like a wizarding penseive. Gringott signalled Balrog to go and get the device to do that.

But then he paused and asked Emyr to see whether he could get Amelia Bones from the Department of Magical Law Enforcement and bring her here without anyone seeing anything…. And without getting himself cursed. Emyr popped off immediately and Gringott and Gamling quickly herded the others into the corner of the office where they could protect them with oversized rune based oversized magical shields that were set up there. They got the shields up just in time because when Emyr popped in, releasing Madam Bones and popping away before she had a chance to turn around, she showed that she was Madeye Moody's protégé alright because she was blasting curses at anything that moved (and quite a few things that didn't) until Gringott's shouting got through to her and she realised that she was in his office. She was still worked up enough to be quite terse as she asked what in the Seven Hells made him think that he had any right to grab her out of her office like that, but stopped, stunned, when Harry stepped out from behind him and said. "Hello Auntie Ami."

There was no question in her mind who this boy was, because she was one of the select few who had known where the Potters were and had seen young Harry as he grew into a toddler, so she knew that voice, those eyes, but the face was off, as he looked like a green eyed copy of James rather than Lily now, and that wasn't something that could have happened naturally. Balrog had brought back the memory projection crystal that was the Goblins' version of a penseive by then, so Harry started putting his memories of events into the crystal to prove to her who he was, then they got to what he'd asked for the crystal for, proof that it had been _Pettigrew_ who betrayed the Potters, not Sirius Black, and that he was still alive. Of course this also required Harry, Hermione and Luna to explain (and show) how they'd been killed by Molly Weasley and her two youngest children on Luna's birthday in Two Thousand and One and then cast back fourteen years into their recently deceased or almost dead Seven year old bodies to be resurrected, and Amelia demanded to know where that fat pig was so that he could be suitably punished for murdering Harry like that, and running Hermione down and killing her as well.

* * *

Gringott showed the grim Goblin humour that outsiders were rarely allowed to see when he chuckled at that. "That will not be possible Madam Bones, you see the Dursley family all fell victim to what appears to be a ghastly murder suicide last night. Vernon and Marge Dursley tied up and filmed themselves sexually abusing, mutilating and then killing Petunia and Dudley Dursley. Though we are not certain that they actually meant to kill themselves, as it may have been an attempt at autoerotic asphyxiation that went wrong because they lacked the strength to lift their weight off the ropes."

Amelia gave him a measured look. "I accept that that fat bastard met his just desserts, but did the women and the boy deserve to die that way?"

There was no humour in his grim visage as he nodded curtly. "From what young Harry has told us, Yes! Harry, can you provide memories of what you went through at their hands please? No, wait, Lady Lovegood and Efa, can you take Lady Luna and Lady Hermione to the chamber over there so that they don't have to see this please?"

Even knowing that these two little girls were actually Twenty One year old women who'd seen a lot more than most on the inside, it was impressive to see them facing down the head of the Goblins, as that was something very few Witches or Wizards were capable of doing. Hermione look the lead, but Luna backed her all the way. "No! He is our man Uncle Gringott, and we will see everything that was done to him, and while you're at it, you can show us what was done to those pigs to punish them for it, so we can decide whether it's necessary to bring them back so that we can punish them further…. Yes, things got bad enough in the war to come to push us to study necromancy and use it sometimes to hold back Riddle and his minions…. We know you well enough to know that at least one of our cousins would have been with the Goblins you sent to their house, so we want to judge for ourselves whether they went far enough!"

Hearing those words from the mouth of a little girl chilled Amelia to the bone. If things had really gotten so bad enough in the coming war to make them go to those lengths, it would be far worse than their war had been.

As if she'd heard those thoughts, Hermione turned to her. "Yes Madam Bones, we _did_ have to go that far, because they were making the world hell on earth and it would have been even worse if they'd taken over completely, by that stage they had already taken over the Ministry, Hogwarts and Saint Mungo's, and just about no one was safe from them…." She read what was going across her face. "No, we _are_ all trained Legilimens, but what you're thinking at the the moment is plain on your face, and I wouldn't use that on someone who's on our side, as I hope you are?"

Amelia revised her earlier thought as she nodded, it was obviously _far_ worse than she could imagine. "Yes Miss Granger, I am, it's just….. What you're talking about is dark magic, and you can't use that without putting a stain on your soul!"

Hermione shook her head angrily. "Have you swallowed that dragon shite from the so called _Leader of the Light_ as well? I thought that _you_ had a mind of your own!" She looked at Harry and Luna. "Perhaps it's already too late to save them, maybe we should just get Sirius out and ride out their war on Isla Negra, or on the Raven and Marie Celeste if they find us there? I for one am not prepared to stay here and watch everyone die again just because _they_ all believe in that old fraud."

That was something that required an explanation. "Would you care to explain that young lady? I _do_ have a mind of my own! But what are you saying about Albus Dumbledore and are you really discussing breaking the one who was proven to have been the cause of Harry's parents' and many others' deaths out of Azkaban and absconding with him?"

Hermione gave the others an obvious ' _See?_ ' look and turned on Amelia. "What I'm saying is that Albus Bloody Dumbledore has quite possibly destroyed more lives in the pursuit of _his_ greater good than Riddle has! _Leader of the Light_ is as much of a self aggrandising made up title that he gave himself as _Lord_ Voldemort is for Riddle! And just where was that _p_ _roven_ Madam Bones? In the trial that he didn't get before he was thrown into Azkaban to rot forever under the order signed by Dumbledore, Crouch and Bagnold? In the Investigation that never happened because Cornelius Fudge had all the so called witnesses to him killing Pettigrew and those Muggles obliviated before anyone else could ask them anything? You _saw_ the proof that Pettigrew was the one who betrayed Harry's parents to their deaths, and that the bastard's still alive in Harry and my memories! That was what Uncle Gringott presumably got you here for but you refuse to accept the proof that you've seen with your own eyes and believe Dumbledore and his accomplices' lies! For that matter, go to Barty Crouch's house and arrest his murdering rapist of a son and put that bastard through the veil of death before he has a chance to serve his master Tom Riddle again!"

"What are you talking about? Barty Crouch Junior died soon after he was sent to Azkaban!"

"And how do you know that? Oh that's right, you were _told_ so it must be true! If you exhume Barty Junior's corpse at Azkaban and examine it _properly_ you'll discover that it is actually his _mother's_ corpse! They used polyjuice to switch Barty Junior with his mother when _you_ authorised her visit to see her son just before she died. Barty Senior keeps him under an imperious curse but sometime over the next seven or eight years he builds up enough resistance to it to break out of it and goes back to serving his master. Don't take my word for it, go to Crouch's bloody house and arrest the bastard! We heard from _him_ that he'd been kept in the house all that time, Daddy Dearest had their elf Winky throw an invisibility cloak over him if anyone came to the house."

She turned her back on Amelia. "Please Harry, let's just get Sirius and leave! Isla Negra will accept him as the Heir to the House of Black and everyone else has forgotten where it is. _She_ was the one of the strongest ones on our side last time but she obviously believes everything Dumbledore tells her this time."

That pissed Amelia off so she spoke up. "Has it occurred to you that maybe someone made me see the truth of the matter _last_ time, as you put it, just as you're starting to do now young lady? You're just like Lily Evans! You write off anyone who can't grasp something immediately like you can as a hopeless case! Well for your information most people _don't_ have your and Lily's brilliance so we need to work through a process to reach the point you do just like that. Now it would be appreciated if _someone_ could show me their memories of Barty Crouch Junior so I can use that to anchor my thought processes about him to, because that's what plodders like me do."

She saw Hermione switch from angry impatience to remorse in a flash and Harry and Luna give her hugs and kisses to comfort her, then Harry put the memories Amelia had requested in the crystal. As she watched these and the other memories he put in there she was growing more and more angry, not with Hermione though, it was at herself for swallowing Dumbledore and the others' lies and them for playing games that could well destroy their world, just to get more power and glory for themselves.

 **A/N: In case anyone missed it, Luna is five months older in this version, so she was born on the Thirteen of September 1980.**


	2. News of the World

**Usual disclaimers, no rights to existing characters, this is not JKR's HP, the real world or a Disney Princess story and there will probably be a few changes in the first hour or so after it's posted because things invariably look different in the published version and I don't always like the way it came out**

Amelia didn't question the _children_ 's information that Pettigrew would be hiding at Hogwarts as Percy Weasley's pet, so she was trying to work out how to get a team of Aurors though the wards of Hogwarts that night without Dumbledore knowing but Harry shook his head in exasperation. Amelia saw him look to Gringott with a request for permission to share something and at his nod turned to her. "There is an automatic notification to the Headmaster whenever anyone crosses the wards Madam Bones, or if they try to apparate into Hogwarts. The only floo which is currently configured to allow people to enter Hogwarts is in Dumbledore's office, and you don't want to be using the floos for anything sensitive anyway..." That got him a look and he said that he'd explain later then went on.

"But there _is_ a way to get in and out of Hogwarts that most people ignore, especially those like the _Great_ Albus Dumbledore who regard them as beneath notice, the Elves! Most Elves can use their version of apparation, which just about no one bothers to block, over great distances, carrying heavy loads with them, and Goblins can do something similar because the two races are related. Going in at night would be a bad idea though, as you would have a much better chance of getting in, grabbing the rat from Weasley's dorm and getting out without being noticed while the boys are in class….. you _will_ need to have at least one trusted Auror present to ensure that Riddle's people can't get Pettigrew released on a technicality, but the question is who?"

He shook his head when Amelia said. "Kingsley Shacklebolt."

"No. In most matters Kingsley is trustworthy, but he never stopped being a part of Dumbledore's Order of the Phoenix and we can't trust him not to go to Dumbledore with this. Dumbledore cast the Fidelius charm over our cottage in Godric's Hollow and then lied about Sirius being the secret keeper to send him to Azkaban without a trial, so there's no way he'd allow any chance of letting that get out if he knew….. I'm thinking Mad Eye Moody… He's pretty much in Dumbledore's pocket too, but I'm prepared to bet on him accepting the proof we can show him, whereas I'm not certain that Kingsley has enough strength of will to oppose Dumbledore at the moment."

Amelia was disturbed by what he had said about Kingsley, but nodded. "Yes, Alastor would be a good choice, besides which, we will need to get him on side for the political battles in front of us, as the House of Moody is a significant member of the Druids' Alliance in the Wizengamot, and what's more, he has never been afraid to oppose any of Albus' proposals that he doesn't agree with there…. And we have another advantage with him, I was the only apprentice he took on so he trusts me more than most people…. May I use your floo Director Gringott?"

Gringott waved her to it, but admonished her to remember what Harry had said about the Floos. As she said, Alastor trusted her enough to come though on her word that she needed to discuss a sensitive and important matter with him in person. When he saw where he was he tensed up, but knew enough about Goblin culture to refrain from drawing his wand. He bowed to Gringott and offered an appropriate greeting in Low Goblin (Harry was probably the only one alive outside of the Goblin Nation who knew High Goblin), and this made enough points with Gringott to get him the greeting of a peer in return. Harry relaxed a little at that, as this was going better than he'd expected so far.

If actually took less to convince Alastor than it had Amelia of the truth of what they were saying, especially after they brought in the Goblins' mind healing experts who not only confirmed what he'd suspected…. that Albus bloody Dumbledore had been obliviating him whenever he saw or heard something he didn't want him to, and had put him under more than a few compulsions as well… but actually managed to reverse most of what Dumbledore had done to him so he got most of those memories back. His towering rage both amused and impressed the Goblins, but there was no question that they had Baron Moody, Head of the Noble and Most Ancient House of Moody on side.

When Alastor raised the question of how they were going to ensure that the rat couldn't escape, Hermione said "Just put him in an unbreakable magic suppressing cage!" impatiently, as if it any idiot would know that, but the look he fixed her with as he coolly asked " _A what?_ " made it obvious that it most definitely _wasn't_ a silly question! That made her realise that someone must have come up with the magic suppression spells that the DMLE used for their manacles sometime in the _next_ seven to eight years and Harry cut off her fumbling with how to apologise for the insult by asking "Do you remember how to cast the necessary spells?", which got him a very similar look to the one she'd just received, but broke her out of the state she was in as he'd intended.

Even knowing that inside these _children'_ _s_ bodies were Twenty One year old adults who had fought, and _won,_ a war with Voldemort that was far worse than the one they'd fought and required Harry to finish for them and that she had been an unspeakable of some note before she was sent back didn't negate the adults' shock when Hermione just waved her hand to conjure a suitable cage and then add the requisite unbreakable and magic suppressing charms with non-verbal wandless spells.

* * *

When Alastor said he was ready and had his wand in his hand, Emyr used Harry's memories of the Gryffindor First Year Boys' Dorm room to pop in, disillusioned, to make sure the coast was clear and locate the rat then pop back, telling Alastor where the rat was before taking his free arm and popping the two of them into the dorm room, accompanied by Balrog and Gamling this time. The rat was stunned before it could move an inch and Balrog grabbed it and stuffed it into the cage, sealing it in and popping back to Gringotts with it in less than a minute. The others stayed to go through Percy Weasley's things on the off chance they may find something incriminating there, but they were all back in Gringott's office inside five minutes, where they revived the rat so that Alastor and Amelia could have the fun of forcing it back into its human form, because by all reports it was quite painful for it to be done that way.

They slapped the magic suppressing manacles that Hermione had conjured onto Pettigrew as soon as he was in his human form and it took Amelia less than a minute to satisfy herself that everything she'd been told by the kids was true, so they sent him off to be locked away in Clan Gringott's private cells that they maintained for those who required punishment and then tried to refresh the air in Gringott's office, because the rat had _reeked_!

The next order of business was to get the one they were going to use Pettigrew to clear out of Azkaban and Emyr popped away to scout Sirius' cell the way he had the Gryffindor dorm room, but he was back almost immediately with Sirius in his Padfoot animagus form, because someone had opened the door of his cell to let the dementors get to him! They quickly created a simulcram of Sirius's human form and Alastor and Amelia provided the memories to show the ones creating it how to make it behave as if it were a human who had been given a dementor's kiss, then Emyr popped back into Sirius' cell to leave the simulcram on what served for a cot in the cell. Sirius told them that some of the guards had been opening the door of his cell to let the dementors at him quite often over the last six years but luckily the dementors tended to ignore him in his animagus form, so Amelia got him to put his memories of all instances of that he could remember into the crystal to help try and identify who had been behind that... One or two guards spontaneously trying to kill the one who supposedly caused the death of the Potters that way may be happen-stance, but a score or more over six years screamed that someone trying to cover their tracks, and off the top of her head she could only think of two likely suspects….. or maybe three she amended as she remembered Lucius Malfoy's reported plans to have his son become the next Duke Black.

They agreed to formally question Sirius under Veritaserum _before_ he got cleaned up and went to the healers, because his condition wasn't life threatening, but the images of him answering the questions in this state would have more impact when they used them in court, as would his memories of the dementors using the open door of his cell to get at him, which they _also_ got him to testify about under Veritaserum. At Gringott's suggestion, they got Sirius' cousin Andromeda Tonks and her husband Edward Tonks to come across before they began the questioning, because Andromeda was the only family member Sirius had that he trusted and her husband was quite a good solicitor…. And they needed to get Ted in for Harry anyway, because he was the official Potter Family solicitor... he was also one of the _Black_ Family solicitors, but Gringott decided to let Sirius' cousin tell him that.

After they'd had a happy reunion, Andi exclaimed. "We have to let Great Uncle Arcturus know that Sirius is safe and well, he will be worried about him because I know he has people watching over him in Azkaban..."

Sirius couldn't believe what he was hearing. "Are you crazy Andi? That will bring Voldemort's people straight to us!"

She laughed. "You don't know your grandfather at all Siri. Uncle Arcturus isn't like our parents or the rest of the scum who make up most of the current House of Black. He and Great Aunt Dorea were the ones who gave Ted and I the money and assistance to officially go into practice with Cousin Regulus and Great Uncle Marius as Wizarding Solicitors after we got married and made us the family solicitors for the Houses of Black and Potter…. The rest of the family would be horrified to know that the descendants of the most notorious Black Blood Traitor and Squib and another Black Blood Traitor and her Muggleborn husband are the official solicitors for the House of Black as Rhys, Fleamont and Tonks, Solicitors at Law. He only pretended to disown the two of us, we're the Ancient Druid House of Tonks because Uncle Arcturus blood adopted Ted and made him head of one of the smaller Ancient Druid Houses in the House of Black _and_ made sure that all the forms were present for me to be married as a daughter of a Noble and Most Ancient House, so Dora has retained her Noble House heritage, and _you're_ still Heir to the titles of Duke Black-Glynn, Head of the Most Noble and Most Ancient Houses of Black and Glynn. But Uncle Arcturus is old and tired of fighting what the House of Black has become for most of this century, so he was pretending to go along with them as he waited for you, his Heir, to finish at Hogwarts so that he could start preparing you to take over and stand the House of Black on its head. If you weren't so Merlin be damned hot headed you would have been told this when you were at Hogwarts, but we couldn't trust you to hold your tongue and if Uncle Arcturus' plans got out before we had everything set up the family would have gotten rid of him _and_ you. Unfortunately, thanks to your temper and pig headedness, by the time you finished at Hogwarts you refused to even talk to him so he never got his chance to share the plan with you before you were thrown into Azkaban…. No, Uncle Arcturus will be both relieved and delighted to hear that you are alive and safe Siri….."

With that, she went to the floo and called him. Arcturus didn't question her when she told him that they had a matter of great import to discuss with him, he just asked permission to come through.

When he arrived in Gringott's office, he started to greet Director Gringott in Low Goblin with the proper forms for someone in his position, but broke off and rushed across the room to embrace Sirius and ask how he was here when he saw him.

Once he'd assured himself that his grandson was fine, or as good as could be expected after six years in Azkaban at least, he returned to apologise to Gringott and finish the proper greeting. After that he guardedly greeted Amelia, Alastor, Xeno and Pandora as Madam Bones, Baron Moody and Baron and Baroness Lovegood, and Luna as Lady Lovegood (she had the Laird's title attached to the Lovegood titles as Xeno's heir), gave the twins a suitable greeting for their station in Low Goblin and waited to be introduced to Hermione and Harry, he was fairly sure that he knew who this boy was but like Amelia he felt that the face was wrong. Gringott gave a Goblin smile as he introduced Hermione as Lady Hermione Jean Granger, the Countess Ravenclaw-Dagworth, and corrected his greeting to Luna, advising him that Lady Luna was now Countess Hufflepuff. He then introduced Harry as the young Duke Potter-Peverell, Earl Gryffindor-Slytherin, confirming who he believed him to be.

Arcturus' eyes widened at the titles he'd heard though. "It would appear that the Fates have some game at play Over Chieftain Gringott."

Gringott sobered up as he nodded. "It does indeed Duke Black-Glynn, but before we go into that, I must explain how your Heir came to be here. You will hear at some point from your people at Azkaban that he has died there, you may hear that it was an unfortunate accident by which a dementor managed to get to him and gave him a dementor's kiss, but as you can see he is here, safe and well. With young Harry and Hermione's help, we located and captured the Death Eater who actually betrayed the Potters to their deaths and then framed your Heir for his own murder and the deaths of thirteen non-magical humans, the quite alive Peter Pettigrew. When we went to retrieve your Heir from Azkaban in a manner that would cover up the fact that he was gone though, our plans went out the window because the High Elf who went to scout his cell found that the cell door had been opened to let the dementors get at him, so he grabbed him in his animagus form and brought him straight back here. It worked out well enough in the end though, because our people created a simulcram of his human form and with Madam Bones and Baron Moody's help managed to make it look like a human who had just been kissed by a dementor, so whoever was trying to have him killed will be under the impression that they have succeeded. Now while I accept that Madam Tonks was correct in insisting that you be brought here to be reassured that your grandson is alive and safe, both he and young Harry are in need of a considerable amount of healing to rectify what has been done to them over the past six years, so with your permission I will be sending them to the healers now. Don't expect to see your grandson for at least a week or two though Duke Black, because that was the estimate our healers gave us for Duke Potter and I expect that your grandson's recovery will take a similar period."

* * *

Arcturus agreed immediately and after one last embrace, a bemused Sirius was led off with Harry to the infirmary, then the others got down to business. Once he had been caught up with the full story, it took quite a bit of persuasion to get Arcturus to hold off on going after Dumbledore, or Crouch or Bagnold, until Harry and Sirius were ready to face the Wizengamot, but he begrudgingly agreed that what they were proposing would be a better course, and that it would have more impact if he waited to pull the rug out from his family at just the right moment. With that, he reluctantly said that he needed to go back to avoid giving the game away but asked that they keep him advised of everything that was happening with his Grandson and Cousin Dorea's Grandson.

That reminded Amelia that they hadn't gotten the story about why the floos couldn't be trusted yet, so they turned to Hermione and Luna and Hermione explained how people in the Floo Network Authority had been blocking or granting floo access to suit the Death Eaters and their supporters in both wars, and the period in between, and using the floos to listen in on and track calls for them as well. That started a considerable amount of swearing on all sides, and they were so worked up that they didn't notice that Gringott had sent Balrog and Gamling off to get something.

When the twins returned, Gringott explained that the mirrors they were handing out were effectively Goblin Floo devices. Hermione looked up at that and asked. "Like the communications mirrors that Harry's Dad and Sirius made?"

Gringott laughed. "Yes, they found part of the description of the devices in Charlus's private library and worked out how to make a limited version of these work, James got in a lot of trouble for that but it was ultimately decided that by working out how to replace the parts they didn't have themselves, they'd changed it enough to mask its origins so they were allowed to keep them. The parts they came up with themselves were actually quite impressive so we didn't think it fair to take that away from them…. But the proper devices will do a lot more than their mirrors did, and in view of what Hermione has told us about the Wizarding Floo Network, I believe it will be safer to use these for any of our private communications."

With that, he went on to explain how to use them to communicate, and expand them to allow them to be used for magical transport. Each of them got a couple of mirror devices linked to their magical signature so that they could set up one in a safe location and use them for magical transports. With that, Arcturus made his goodbyes, mentally shaking his head at the old world weary eyes these two little girls had, as they indicated far more hardship than the ten years of war that he knew that they'd been involved in would explain.

Amelia had her own people planted in the prison staff too, and they and Arcturus' people reported a couple of days later that Sirius Black had been discovered with his cell door open, apparently kissed by the dementors. He'd died later that day and was buried in an unmarked grave. The interesting thing about that was the fact that the guards had been specifically ordered not to say a word about what happened to anyone, and there was nothing in the Azkaban records about any prisoner being kissed by the dementors, let alone Sirius Black.

Alastor asked Gringott whether they could find out whether any large payments had been made to the Warden or any of the ones Sirius identified as having opened his cell to let the dementors in and Gringott gave a Goblin grin, because they'd blood adopted Sirius into the Gringott family so that they could officially use the facilities of the Goblin Nation to heal him, and the Goblins' code in regard to family overrode any agreements they made with the Wizards. They quickly identified the one who must have opened the cell by the size of the payment made to him, though the payment to the Warden was even larger and a number of the others must have been involved in covering it up because they received payments as well. Nor was it any great surprise to find that the payments came from the vaults of publishing and distribution houses that Dumbledore had had created to publish and sell the Harry Potter stories, having given them exclusive rights to publish things using Harry Potter's name as Harry Potter's self proclaimed magical guardian.

Gringott laughed at that and told them how Dumbledore had been trying to get access to the Potter fortune and assets ever since he used his power in the Wizengamot to seal Lord and Lady Potter's wills and proclaim himself _Harry_ Potter's magical guardian a couple of days after Lord and Lady Potter were killed. Given the fact that, as the sole Heir to the Potter line and titles, Harry had been Lord _Henry_ James Potter from birth and had automatically become _Duke_ Henry James Potter upon his father's death, the Goblin Nation had told Dumbledore that they held nothing to do with any _Harry_ Potter and told him to leave. He'd come back a few days later with the key to Harry's trust vault from the Potters' cottage in Godric's Hollow and the Wizengamot documentation appointing him as Harry Potter's Magical Guardian, demanding access to his ward's vault so that he could properly see to his well being and they took the key off him, demanding to know where the infant that this key belonged to was located as they had entered into binding contracts with his parents to give him proper protection and education in the event of their demise. Dumbledore had refused to tell them anything and again demanded access to his ward's money… Gringott tried to look remorseful but failed dismally as he said that they'd gotten frustrated because Dumbledore's mental shields had been strong enough to prevent them getting Harry's location out of his head, so Dumbledore was _literally_ thrown out that time, which had caused quite a furore with the Wizards, but Dumbledore had been using the so-called Goblin Liaison Office ever since then to try and force them to give him access to the Potter money. His constant failure to access any of the Potter vaults was the reason he'd created those companies and gave them exclusive rights to sell Harry Potter stories, but he had made a fortune from that.

* * *

Amelia nodded grimly at that. "Yes, that's something else we need to task Rhys, Fleamont and Tonks with once the current crisis is past, reclaiming all the money that Dumbledore and others have made off Harry's name for him, but for now, Harry, Hermione and the Lovegoods are safe here in preparation for moving them into Potter Manor with Harry, so I believe that our priority should be Sirius. He's safe while he's here in Gringotts, but he can't leave here until we clear his name….. I have to admit that I was as guilty as anyone of taking everything at face value in regard to his guilt, even though if I'd used an ounce of common sense I would have questioned how someone I knew to be like a brother to James could have turned on him like that…."

Gringott shook his head. "No Madam Bones, I believe that my guilt there is greater than your's, you see _I_ was the official witness for the Goblin Nation of both the formal rituals for Sirius to become young Harry's Godfather, and the blood adoption to make him Sirius' Heir, and therefore the Secondary Heir to the House of Black….

"While I do not believe that you should feel too guilty about Sirius though Madam Bones, I _do_ have a bone of contention to pick with you and the others in the Druids' Alliance…. _Why_ did you allow Dumbledore to seal Lord and Lady Potter's wills, proclaim himself Harry's magical guardian and assign the House of Potter's voting proxies to himself?"

Alastor stepped in at this point, because Gringott was furious, and rather frightening.

"Because without the Potter families' votes, we were powerless against the so called Light and Dark Houses' voting blocks in the Wizengamot! The Potters held over half of our votes and we couldn't use them when the voting proxies associated with the Potter Family were in question. Perhaps if we'd known we could turn to Duke Black… No, that wouldn't have worked because Cygnus Black was voting the House of Black proxies at the time. At least Dumbledore didn't know to claim any more than the House of Potter votes, because that was only a fraction of the votes that the Potter Family controlled. Not even the fact that the Potter House Magic refused to accept his proxies so the Clerk of the Court has to manually add the proxy votes to the issue at hand was enough to stop it going through. He did try to claim the voting rights for some of the other Potter Family Houses when he found out about them, but without the shock of the Potter's deaths and the rejoicing over Voldemort's death to help him steamroller over any opposition we managed to put enough doubt in the other Wizengamot members' minds about what he was trying to do to get him rejected every time after that…."

They'd been so tied up in the argument that they'd forgotten about who else was in the room, so they were shocked when a small voice spoke up. "Riddle isn't dead… The protections that Harry's Mum presumably put over him destroyed Riddle's body, but he had created Horcruxes to anchor his soul to the mortal realm, so he can't really die until they're all destroyed, and one of them is in Harry!…."

Hermione stopped at that and turned to look at Luna. "At least it _was_ , Luna, have you seen any sign of Riddle's soul fragment in the scar since we came back to this time?"

Luna pondered the question for a while and shook her head. "No. I hadn't been looking for it, because it was an ugly thing, but as far as I can see it's gone."

Hermione spun around to beg Uncle Gringott to get the healers to scan for any indication of a dark soul fragment in the curse scar on Harry's forehead, or anywhere else on him, and he barked some orders that had Balrog and Gamling running out of the room. Meanwhile the ones in the room were listening to Hermione, because she was working through the matter out aloud with Luna.

"It makes sense actually, you and I were both taken close enough to death to allow our future selves to take over our bodies, but we didn't actually die because Death won't release anyone who's come into his realm without a price being paid….. But Harry had a piece of _Riddle_ 's soul in him that he needed to get rid of…... so the Fates must have made some sort of deal with Death to accept Riddle's soul fragment as his price for letting Harry return…. But the question is, was it _just_ that one soul fragment or do we need to round up and send on the rest of Riddle's soul fragments to prevent Death claiming Harry's soul again? Damnit… I'm not willing to take that risk with Harry's life! We know what and where most of them are so we'll just round them up and destroy the other soul fragments, though hopefully some of Uncle Gringott's people can find a way to release the soul fragments from Rowena's Diadem and Helga's Cup without destroying them, and possibly the Peverell Ring too, though that was killing the old bastard so I won't let Harry take any risks with it. Mind you getting to it was apparently a death defying situation too…. Maybe there's some way for the Head of a House to call their House's heirlooms to them without going through all that again? Uncle Gringott will know!"

She broke off her ruminating and turned to say "Unc…..", breaking off again because the others in the office were all standing there, staring at them. Gringott was giving her a Goblin grin as he said.

"That was a very interesting and enlightening hypothesis Hermione, it certainly made more sense than anything I or my people as you call them have managed to come up with since you and Harry arrived that night. There is indeed a process for the Head of a House to call missing heirlooms to them, but I would suggest that you wait until after you have claimed your titles and house rings to try it. Now I believe that you just said that you know what most at least of the Horcrux objects are and where to find them?"

Hermione nodded. "Yes Uncle Gringott…. As I said, one was in the curse scar on Harry's forehead, though hopefully that one is already gone…. The last time another one was Riddle's snake familiar, Nagini…."

Amelia broke in at that point. "Who's this _Riddle_ that you two keep talking about?"

Gringott grinned and waved to Hermione to answer. "Tom Marvolo Riddle was the bastard son of Merope Gaunt, a Pureblood witch from a family who falsely claimed to be descended from Salazar Slytherin…. it was actually his Squib sister that they came from…. who was so inbred that she was more Squib than Witch, and Tom Riddle, the Muggle son of a local land owner who Merope used love potions on until he married her and got her pregnant. She thought the fact that she was carrying their baby would be enough to make him stay so she stopped feeding him love potions then, but as soon as he came out of the effect of the love potions he was so disgusted with her that he went home to his parents and they had the marriage annulled immediately."

"Merope died in childbirth and the boy was mistreated at the orphanage he was raised in so he was already bitter and twisted and using magic to hurt people by the time Albus Dumbledore, as the Deputy Headmaster at Hogwarts, came to offer him a place at Hogwarts. Dumbledore kept sending him back to the orphanage to be abused every holiday, so he had become what you know as Voldemort by the time he was sixteen….. When Harry comes out of his reconstruction he can show the memory of how Riddle demonstrated that I AM LORD VOLDEMORT is just an anagram of TOM MARVOLO RIDDLE… So all those haughty _Pure_ blood Nobles have in fact willingly become the branded slaves of a common half blood bastard.… Actually, given the fact that Merope Gaunt was pretty much a Squib, you _could_ argue that Riddle was actually a common _Muggleborn_ bastard _..._. Anyway, Dumbledore was certain that Riddle turned Nagini into a horcrux in Albania in the early Nineties to protect the weak and vulnerable homunculus he created with Pettigrew's help to host his shade that had fled back to Albania after Harry destroyed his possessed host at Hogwarts in Ninety One….."

At that point Andromeda asked them to wait while she called Uncle Arcturus and have him come over, because she knew he would want to hear this. Arcturus lit up with unholy glee when he arrived and they told him the truth of Lord Voldemort's origins, but allowed himself to be persuaded to hold off on casting Bellatrix and Narcissa out of the House of Black and dissolving their marriages until they could make the most use of the disruption that would cause. With that, he apologised for the delay and asked Hermione to continue.

"Riddle's first horcrux was the diary that he had stored his memories and persona in as a Sixteen year old…. Oh no! The Basilisk! We need to get rid of it again and I won't let Harry be bitten to do it this time!"

Amelia broke in at that. " _What_ Basilisk?"

"The thousand year old, eighty or ninety foot Basilisk that Salazar Slytherin originally created to guard his Chamber of Secrets under Black Lake, and get rid of anyone he didn't approve of in Hogwarts, and Harry killed with the Sword of Gryffindor in Ninety Two… Riddle had opened the Chamber of Secrets in the Forties and apparently somehow managed to convince it that he was the Heir of Slytherin and therefore its master because it did his bidding. It killed a Muggleborn student, Myrtle Warren, in one of the girls toilets in the dungeon before Riddle locked it back inside the Chamber of Secrets and framed Hagrid and his pet Acromantula Aragog for killing Myrtle. Riddle was Headboy at the time so the Headmaster and teachers didn't bother checking whether the half breed was guilty or not, they just snapped his wand, expelled him and sent him to Azkaban as a Fourteen or Fifteen year old on Riddle's word. Dumbledore would have known that Hagrid was innocent, but I doubt that was why he got him released and gave him a job as an apprentice gamekeeper at Hogwarts after he used the situation that led to the death of a student to depose Dippett as the Headmaster, it was probably so that he'd have a ready scapegoat on hand to blame for any crimes he couldn't cover up. The horcrux creation process reportedly requires a murder to be committed so Myrtle was probably killed to create the Diary Horcrux. Anyway, Harry used the basilisk fang that broke off in his arm to destroy the horcrux and Riddle's shade. At this point, Lucius Malfoy should be keeping that diary in the secret chamber full of prohibited dark objects he has hidden under the drawing room floor in Malfoy Manor."

The others were staring at her at that point, stuck on 'the basilisk fang that broke off in his arm' and Amelia blurted out. "How in Merlin's name did Harry survive being bitten by a Basilisk?"

"Dumbledore's phoenix, Fawkes, brought the sorting hat to Harry, he got the Sword of Gryffindor out of the hat, and after he was bitten Fawkes cried on the wound where the fang went into his arm. Phoenix tears have incredible healing powers and that was how he survived, but as I already said, I do _not_ intend to let Harry get bitten again! If we can't come up with any other solution I'll…" Luna looked at her and she amended that. " _We'll_ kill the bloody thing by collapsing the Chamber of Secrets on it!"

"Anyway, the Peverell Ring, which they claimed as the Gaunt Ring even though no Gaunt was ever accepted by it, is currently hidden under the floor in the Gaunt shack near Little Haggleton, but it's protected by several layers of parseltongue magic wards and large numbers of real snakes that have been attracted to the parseltongue magic. Harry's a parseltongue so he might be able to help with that if necessary, but I don't want him going anywhere near that place, that's why I was asking about calling heirlooms to us. There's also a curse on the ring that almost killed Dumbledore but it's got the Resurrection Stone in it…."

She saw the disbelieving looks on most faces in the room. "Oh the Deathly Hallows are real alright! As I said, the Resurrection Stone is in the Peverell Ring, Dumbledore has the Elder Wand and the Cloak of Invisibility is a Potter Heirloom, which Dumbledore _also_ has at the moment because it was confiscated off James in Seventh Year and when he asked for it to be returned when he left Hogwarts, Dumbledore claimed that it had disappeared, but he used it to try and curry Harry's favour on his first Christmas at Hogwarts by returning it to him with a cock and bull story about his father leaving it with him for safe keeping."

Gringott spoke up at that point. "I do not know about the Resurrection Stone or the Elder Wand, but the Potter's Invisibility Cloak is certainly real, our people who had a chance to examine it said that they have ever seen another one which was anywhere near as effective." He waved at Hermione to continue and she nodded.

"We're not a hundred percent sure about which order the next two Horcruxes were created in as they were apparently created around the same time from two objects stolen from the same woman, one was probably Salazar Slytherin's Wife's or Mother's Locket that Merope pawned when she was pregnant with Tom Junior and the other's Helga Hufflepuff's Cup. The Blacks' crazy Elf Kreature in the Black's London Townhouse in 12 Grimmauld Place is either wearing the locket or has it in his cupboard…."

She stopped at that point and looked at Gringott. "Did the people who went to Privet Drive find Harry's Room?"

Gringott nodded grimly and the others could see that there was something in that so they asked what she was talking about. Hermione was just as grim as she said. "Harry was kept locked inside the cupboard under the stairs whenever he wasn't working or at school. At some point he scratched Harry's Room above the door on the inside because that was the only room he ever knew, even though there were at least two or three empty bedrooms upstairs….."

"Anyway, Kreacher will either be wearing the locket or it will be in his cupboard. Harry may be able to call it to him as a Slytherin Heirloom, if so perhaps Kreacher won't be quite so crazy when Sirius has to go to the townhouse, though I doubt it because Sirius' crazy mother's portrait has gotten even crazier since she died and Kreacher hangs on her every word….. Part of that could be because he's still punishing himself for failing Sirius' little brother Regulus though. Regulus became a Death Eater, but he saw the error of his ways and tried to make amends, taking the Horcrux Locket from where Riddle stashed it and replacing it with a facsimile to stop Riddle using it for whatever he intended. The poison he had to drink to retrieve the horcrux locket was killing him, even though it was the inferi who actually killed him in the end, and as he was dying he made Kreacher promise to get the Horcrux Locket away from there and find some way to destroy it, but he couldn't… Those bloody things are _very_ hard to destroy…. so Kreacher has been punishing himself for failing his beloved Master Regulus ever since…."

She broke off as she suddenly realised that Regulus' grandfather was there listening to this story and when she looked at him Arcturus was in tears, but he shook his head. "No, thank you for telling me that my grandson was willing to give his life to do the right thing in the end. We all make mistakes, it is how we deal with those mistakes that measures us and now I can remember him proudly. You weren't wrong about his mother though, that foul witch poisoned my son and grandson's minds, only Sirius managed to escape her… Alastor, would you do me the honour of accompanying me to the townhouse and helping me recover that locket? Kreacher wasn't a bad Elf when he was young, so I believe that Lady Hermione is correct, he is being corrupted by that thing and Walburga's portrait, so if we can remove both of them and destroy the locket as Regulus charged him to do, Kreacher may have a chance of recovering from the sorry state he is currently in."

Alastor nodded and promised to go with him, then waved at Hermione to continue.

"The other one created at that time was made from Helga Hufflepuff's Cup. It is in the Lestrange Vault here but I'm not sure about the best way to retrieve it. It would probably be simplest for Luna to call it to her as Head of the Noble and Most Ancient House of Hufflepuff, but it's a dark object of an order high enough to make the fines you could legitimately levy on the Lestranges for storing it in a Gringotts vault wipe them out, especially as they also set nasty and lethal curses on it in there. I'll leave you to decide about that Uncle Gringott…."

Gringott's eyes gleamed at the idea of cleaning out the Lestranges and the look that passed between him and Arcturus said that they would be having discussions on combining forces to ensure the House of Lestrange was destroyed.

"The next one was made from Rowena Ravenclaw's Diadem. Riddle conned the Grey Lady at Hogwarts, who was actually Rowena's daughter Helena, into telling him where she hid the Diadem when she stole it and ran away to Albania because she was pregnant to the man who was to become the Bloody Baron, the Slytherin House Ghost. Riddle came back to Hogwarts when he returned from Albania, supposedly to apply for the Defense Against The Dark Arts position, but once again, instead of doing anything about the one who even he admitted had turned truly dark by then, Dumbledore just entertained him for a while and then let him leave. While he was there, Riddle hid Rowena's Diadem in the Room of Requirements, what the Elves call the Come and Go Room, on the Seventh Floor and it's still there. He reportedly also put the curse on the DADA position when Dumbledore turned him down. If I can call the Diadem to me I will, because I don't want any of us to get caught in Hogwarts..."

"All of the Horcruxes are very dark objects, so dark you don't want to be in the same room as them, and they're mostly loaded with strong compulsions to make people do whatever is required to trigger them, so however we retrieve them we need to have containers that can screen anyone from their effects ready to lock them away in…."

She looked at Arcturus and Alastor. "You'll want to have one of those containers for the locket." Alastor nodded to say that he'd gotten the message.

* * *

By the time she finished, Gringott was obviously making plans and everyone else except for Luna (who it wasn't news to) was looking very disturbed about what Hermione had told them.

Gringott arranged for a suitable container for the locket and the two wizards went off. Alastor came back with the locket and a disturbing story.

Arcturus' intention had been to remove Walburga's portrait and store it in one of the Black family vaults, because magical portraits were regarded as an extension of the witch or wizard, so destroying their portrait was regarded as a form of killing the witch or wizard, but she'd gloated that his line was all gone now that her biggest disappointment, her eldest son, was dead. She sealed her fate though when she said. "They were _all_ a disappointment! Regulus turned on his master, and your fool son refused to pay compensation for _his_ son's failure, he actually said that he was _proud_ of his son for standing up for what he believed in… then he was too weak to take his proper punishment for that defiance, he hardly lasted fifteen minutes before he gave out! And your daughter was incapable of producing _anything_ to carry on your line so it's dead now! At least the House of Black will be able to get proper leadership when _you_ finally go…."

Even a crazy witch like that should have been able to recognise the towering rage that was building in Arcturus at that but she continued to taunt him, confident that he would never go against the mores of acceptable behaviour in magical society, right until he calmly drew his wand and obliterated the portrait with fiendfyre.

Alastor shook his head. "I've never seen such a controlled application of fiendfyre, there wasn't a trace left of her portrait or its frame, but he'd kept it from doing any more than scorch the wall behind it! So the primary corrupting influences are gone from the Black Townhouse now, and Arcturus has charged the Elf with moving every single dark object and magical portrait in the house down to the basement and making the house liveable again, like it was before he turned it over to Orion and that witch."

* * *

Sirius came out of therapy after a week, but the healers said that Harry would be there for at least another week, so Sirius was told that he would be spending that time with Andi and his Grandfather, learning how to act the part of the Heir to the titles of Duke Black and Head of the Most Noble and Most Ancient House of Black, because that was who he'd be in the court room and they needed him to do his part. He found that crying with his grandfather over Regulus' and his father's fates, but agreeing that it felt good to be able to remember them with pride now, made it possible to bond with his grandfather at last.

They also spent a good deal of time planning how they would strike back against the Death Eaters in court. It was a given that Bellatrix, Narcissa and her son Draco were all being banished from the House of Black and Bellatrix and Narcissa's marriages were being annulled, with all titles, holdings, properties, moneys and belongings that were rightfully the House of Black's being reclaimed, along with any and all moneys accrued from what rightfully belonged to the House of Black, but for Bellatrix, they had to ensure that Helga Hufflepuff's cup and any other dark objects of a high enough order to incur fines would remain as Lestrange property so that Gringotts could strip as much as possible from the House of Lestrange, and for Narcissa, the team of Aurors and Unspeakables going in with the Elves reclaiming the Black property needed to find and get into the secret chamber under the drawing room floor so that they could discover the dark objects there and use them against Lucius, and spirit the Horcrux Diary away in a suitable container before Lucius Malfoy had a chance to get away from the court room and block them.

They also had to ensure that Barty Crouch Senior was held in the court room while they raided his house and captured the supposedly dead Barty Crouch Junior. Between reparations made to Sirius and the House of Longbottom, there would be nothing left of the Houses of Crouch or Lestrange and Arcturus would call for the dissolution of both Houses to remove their stain from Magical Britain. Arcturus agreed when Sirius suggested that the House of Black didn't need more titles, so any titles belonging to the Houses of Lestrange or Crouch would be forfeited to the House of Longbottom, which would help strengthen their house.

After a few days of this, Andi actually had to force Sirius to come away for his etiquette and politics lessons, because he was quite enjoying spending time with his grandfather.

* * *

Harry, Hermione and Luna didn't need etiquette and politics lessons, because the Fates had given them the information they needed for their task when they were sent back, and after the Goblins' healers removed all of the blocks that Dumbledore had put on Harry he had access to everything.

That wasn't all though, because he was making plans with the girls and Gringott between therapy sessions and he and the girls had agreed to accept all of the titles they were entitled to, and _also_ make the maximum number of magical betrothal contracts they could between their houses, with blood ties, to get the maximum possible benefit from the growth, power and knowledge boosts they received from the Family Magics and Knowledge.

As a result of that, by the time Harry and the girls came out of the reconstruction process, they still looked like children on the outside, but it was more like ten or eleven year olds than seven or eight year olds because they were all close to five feet tall…. and they were far more ready magically and knowledge-wise to take on the magical world than Sirius and most of the others.

For that matter, they had more real world experience of the ravages of a dirty war and dirty politics than most of the family too because even after they'd defeated Riddle, the traditional Purebloods who were desperate to stay in power had passed laws to disenfranchise anyone but them. Hermione had quite possibly been the only Muggleborn in the Ministry of Magic who held anything more important than a base level clerk's job, and the only way the Head of the Department of Mysteries managed to give her that job was by playing on the fact that she was a key member of the Golden Trio, and it was only the fact that he was _Harry Potter_ that allowed Harry's advancement to come even close to his achievements as a Half-blood, while Purebloods who were barely doing anything more than turning up for work were being promoted over all the Half-blood Aurors who were risking life and limb on a daily basis taking down the remnants of the Death Eaters and their minions and closing the cases.

They hadn't really shared what their world had become with the others, but it was bad enough that they were prepared to do _whatever_ they had to to prevent it happening again….


	3. Day in Court

**Usual disclaimers, no rights to existing characters, this is not JKR's HP, the real world or a Disney Princess story and there will probably be a few changes in the first hour or so after it's posted because things invariably look different in the published version and I don't always like the way it came out**

Another thing that had been progressing from when Harry, Hermione and Luna arrived at Gringotts was Lord and Lady Longbottom's recovery. With the knowledge and abilities that Harry, Hermione and Luna had between them now, there was no question that they could improve on the treatment the Longbottoms were getting at St Mungo's, even if they _were_ doing their best for them there, and Harry for one didn't believe that they were, in fact he believed that there was nothing actually wrong with them other than the potions that were being fed into them to ensure that no-one got to ask them any questions about the night they were attacked, because Lady Augusta Longbottom, Lord Longbottom's mother and the Longbottom Regent and Steward, did not know how the Fidelius Charm hiding Longbottom Hall had been removed. The Secret Keeper had been Frank, her son, and people who understood the Fidelius Charm said that only the Secret Keeper and the one who cast the charm could remove it. There was no way Frank would have put his family at risk like that, so it must have been the one who cast the charm, and they were pretty sure who that was.

Harry was sure that Dumbledore was trying to ensure that neither Sirius or the Longbottoms ever had a chance to tell the truth about what happened, but the magic of St Mungo's prevented anything lethal being administered to them and the level of care that Augusta was paying for meant that they were being monitored twenty four seven, so the most Dumbledore's minions could do was feed them the highest doses of potions possible without killing them or causing a rapid enough deterioration for it to be caught by the ones monitoring them. To Harry's mind, this meant that they should show a rapid improvement once they were away from St Mungo's and had the potions flushed from their systems.

So they created a parchment trail showing that Lord and Lady Longbottom were being transferred to a respected Healing Facility on the Continent (that was all it was ever referred to as) that had achieved remarkable results with conditions like theirs via a Goblin magical transport service the Healing Facility had contracted to move them. Then they turned up without notice at the end of the overnight shift and the goblins set up the magical transport with practised speed and efficiency while the St Mungo's staff tried to tell them that they couldn't take patients out of the hospital without proper authorisation. Unfortunately for them and their sponsor;

a) The disillusioned surveillance mirrors that Emyr had slipped in to set up earlier were recording them desperately trying to floo call Albus Dumbledore, who was paying them quite a tidy sum to make sure that the Longbottoms stayed right where they were in their current state.

b) The Goblins were very efficient and Lord and Lady Longbottom had left St Mungo's within fifteen minutes of their arrival, and

c) The three friends in hooded robes who had come to give Lady Longbottom moral support as she agonised over her decision to send her only son and daughter in law off to another country in hope that the radical treatment used there would work for them were in fact Madam Bones, the Director of the DMLE, the renowned, if not legendary, Auror Baron Alastor Moody, and Saul Croaker, the Director of the Department of Mysteries. Dumbledore ignored them as he rushed past in his lurid robe thrown on over a nightshirt, bunny slippers and nightcap, and they let him get as far as saying. "I really must insist that you have Frank and Alice returned here immediately Augusta, this is the _only_ place where they can get the proper care!" Before they pushed their hoods back and Amelia responded.

" _Insist!_ Mister Dumbledore? By what authority are you attempting to override the House of Longbottom's Regent and Steward's decisions for the care of Lord and Lady Longbottom, her son and daughter in law? And when did you have the time in recent years to tour _all_ of the Healing Facilities in Europe and do an in depth review of _all_ their treatment programs? For that matter when did you gain the qualifications of a Master Healer that you would need to review the treatment programs?"

Dumbledore was just staring at her with his mouth open, so Alastor snapped. "The Lass asked you a question Albus, a few questions actually, and I'm wanting to hear the answers to them as well!"

That made Dumbledore draw himself up to respond, but just in time he realised that Alastor and Bones were waiting for a chance to pounce, so he just huffed something about 'I was just trying to ensure that Frank and Alice got the proper care!' and turned to flounce out, only to find his way blocked by Xeno Lovegood, scribbling madly. "I'm sorry Mister Dumbledore, I missed your responses to Madam Bones' questions, could you repeat them please? Was it like when you got the Wizengamot to give you the authority to override Lord and Lady Potter's wills? Where were you certified as a Master Healer? What were the names of some of the Healing Facilities you've reviewed and how is Saint Mungo's better than them?"

Dumbledore went for his wand, but out of the corner of his eye saw that Alastor and Bones already had their wands in their hands and as furious as he was he realised that the power of the Elder Wand would do him no good if one or both of them hit him with spells before he had a chance to cast anything, and that was almost certain, so he just brusquely pushed past Lovegood and ran off, promising to himself that he'd destroy the fool and his rag once and for all.

The Quibbler was little more than a sideline, a hobby really, for Xeno at that point, so few people read it normally, but somehow it was all over Diagon Alley that morning…... And a headline of LEADER OF THE LIGHT DOESN'T KNOW WHETHER HE'S COMING OR GOING and pictures of Albus Dumbledore rushing up in his sleepwear and bunny slippers, insisting that Lord and Lady Longbottom be returned to St Mungo's immediately because there was nowhere else that they could be get proper treatment and then running away ensured that it was read. It also appeared in the local language in all the major cities in Magical Europe, so demands for a formal apology for this slur against their renowned Healing Facilities were flooding in from most of the governments of Magical Europe.

In the non-magical world, it would be accepted that there was little grounds for complaint about the Quibbler's front page article, because aside from the sensational headline, Xeno had stuck to the facts, or least the story they were using. Lady Longbottom, Regent and Steward for the House of Longbottom and Magical Guardian for her grandson, the next Earl Longbottom, had heard reports of a respected Healing Facility in Europe having success in treating witches and wizards who were a similar state to her son and daughter in law, the Lord and Lady Longbottom, in the wake of the war against Grindelwald. Therefore, after much soul searching Lady Longbottom had convinced that Healing Facility to take Lord and Lady Longbottom on and arrangements were made with the Goblin Nation in their country to magically transport the two patients to the Healing Facility. Due to time differences between the two countries this transfer had to be performed early in the morning in England. Lady Longbottom was understandably worried about this and second guessing herself, and as a result of this had forgotten to advise St Mungo's beforehand, but there was nothing for the staff of St Mungo's to do in the transfer and Frank and Alice were in their own room, so no-one else would be disturbed. Given Lady Longbottom's upset state, three close friends of the family had come with her to give moral support, Baron Alastor Moody and Baron Saul Croaker whom she had been friends with for over half a century, and Madam Amelia Bones, who had been Frank and Alice's close friend as well as their boss as Aurors. The fact that they were all extremely well known and powerful people in their own right was purely coincidental ;^)

In any _logical_ society, no-one would have questioned that story, Lady Longbottom was being supported by close friends of the family in her desperate attempt to find a way to help her son and daughter in law, as they had not improved at all in the six years they'd been in St Mungo's, and Madam Bones would have been seen as quite right to question the right and qualifications of the political figure who rushed in to _demand_ that Lady Longbottom return her son and daughter immediately to St Mungo's because that was the only place they could be treated properly. Of course Magical Britain was _not_ a logical society, and Augusta, Amelia, Alastor, and Xeno were all attacked for their parts in this, the only one who wasn't attacked was Saul, but that was mainly because most people were more afraid of the Department of Mysteries than they were of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement. They'd expected that of course, that was why Gringott had made sure that the Quibbler edition with the article was distributed to all the major cities in Europe (and to undermine Dumbledore in the ICW, because he'd insulted most of the member countries with that ridiculous statement, but then he'd never expected anyone but Augusta to hear it).

They had almost immediate confirmation that Harry's suspicions had been well founded, because as soon as they started flushing the potions from Frank and Alice's systems and removing the blocks that had been placed on them, they started recognising the people they knew, and when their heads had cleared enough for the situation to be explained to them, they agreed to go into re-constructive therapy similar to what Harry and Sirius were going through to repair the damage of six years of potions and inactivity.

* * *

Around this time, they had an unexpected windfall, because the Muggle scandal rags had latched onto the lurid story and images of the Dursley family sex party murder suicide, and especially the other piece of juicy gossip that came out of the forensic reports, that the Police had found a considerable amount of blood evidence from another child, who's blood type didn't match the Dursleys, and the evidence pointed to them having been kept prisoner and abused for years. There was no sign of the child there, so the theory was that they'd been killed and their body disposed of prior to the Dursleys' final act. The windfall was that when the Police asked the neighbours if they knew anything about another child, they were told that Petunia Dursley's nephew, one Harry Potter, had been living with the Dursleys for the last six years, but he was never allowed out of the house other than to go to school or work in the yard, though he was sometimes left with old Mrs Figg down the street when the Dursleys went away on holiday. When Mrs Figg was asked about the boy though, she'd shrieked "Harry's _Dead_?" and fainted dead away, so the police were waiting to be allowed to question her in hospital.

Rita Skeeter's disdain for Muggles didn't stop her being am avid reader of their scandal rags, because they were often a source of dirt she could use against prominent people in the Magical World, and the articles about the Dursleys which mentioned that there was evidence of another boy, a nephew named Harry Potter, being imprisoned and abused in the house for six years and then killed were gold. The story pretty much wrote itself, all Dumbledore would tell anyone about where Harry Potter was at the time was the fact that he'd left him with relatives in the Muggle World where he would be well looked after and safe after his parents were killed, so she just called for Dumbledore to show proof that this poor child wasn't _their_ Harry Potter, their saviour, to prove that Harry Potter was in fact alive, and safe, and this was just some other child who shared his name. Of course she was milking this for everything she could, so she stretched these articles out over a few weeks.

The fact that Dumbledore couldn't do that, as the only things he had to indicate that Harry Potter was in fact alive were the illegal instruments in his office (while one of them _had_ recorded the fact that he was dead for up to an hour one night when all of this was going on, not even Harry Potter could come back from the dead so he'd just put it down to something blocking the signal somehow) meant that Dumbledore was now running around madly, frantically trying to shore up his failing support all over the place. The Longbottom article had been pushed into the background in the wake of the Potter scandal but he was constant getting reminders that it had merely been put aside temporarily in the form of questions from people who wouldn't dream of questioning him before about why had be been so insistently demanding that Frank and Alice Longbottom be returned to St Mungo's when they hadn't done _anything_ for them in six years.

* * *

Once Sirius, Harry, Hermione, Luna, Frank and Alice had all completed their re-constructive therapy, they had formal Acromantula silk robes made up for them, along with Harry's Godmother and Magical Guardian Emmeline Vance, Xeno, Pandora, Andi, Ted and Arcturus, all of them who would be coming out of the woodwork for their first strike against Dumbledore and the others. One of the gifts the Fates had given Harry, Hermione and Luna to help them in this task was the fact that, even though Harry was the only one who'd displayed any form of Metamorphmagus abilities the last time around, he, Hermione and Luna _all_ had full Metamorphmagus abilities now, so they considered going into the Wizengamot with the expected size and development of a Seven year old boy and girl and Eight year old girl but they decided against it because they would be taken more seriously if they looked older. Harry kept his natural look with his mother's features, dark auburn hair shot through with copper highlights which the women in the family had decided would be worn long to try and tame it (and because it looked better that way) and a barely discernible scar.

He was actually looking forward to the questions about why he wasn't wearing glasses and didn't look anything like he did on the Harry Potter book covers, because they wanted to be able to ask where those images had come from, seeing as he'd known nothing about those books or Magical Britain until he'd had a near death experience a few weeks ago and had been locked in a cupboard in a Muggle house in Surrey and treated like a house elf for most of the last six years when he was supposedly having all those wonderful adventures.

No-one knew what Hermione was supposed to look like though so she got rid of the bushy hair and big front teeth that had been her major bugbears when she was young.

Their opportunity to present Pettigrew, the Warden and Guards from Azkaban who'd conspired to kill Sirius, Barty Crouch Junior and Senior and Sirius for trial came up about a week and a half after Harry and the Longbottoms had come out of their re-constructive therapy, because there was a regular Wizengamot session scheduled that Dumbledore had said he was too busy to attend because he was tied up with Hogwarts business (IE: running around trying to hang onto his erstwhile supporters), so Madam Marchbanks was tabled to take the seat of the Chief Witch for the session. As usual for these sessions, the general Wizengamot members had essentially drawn straws and the ones who had to attend because they drew the short straws were just enough to prevent the session being rescheduled to another date which was even less convenient. However, all members of the Druid's Alliance had been brought up to date on the recent developments and would be in attendance, which would be enough to provide a quorum for criminal trials, they all wanted to be there to celebrate Harry, Sirius, Frank and Alice 'coming back to life' anyway. The House of Black had withdrawn from the Druid's Alliance couple of hundred years earlier, but Arcturus was attending to cancel any and all voting proxies for the House of Black and all associated houses, cancel the marriages of any Black family members to Death Eaters, cast the Death Eaters and their supporters out of the family and formally accept Phineas and Marius' descendants back into the House of Black, as well as welcome his grandson back and reaffirm him as his Heir, give Narcissa's title to Andromeda (which would elevate the House of Tonks to Noble and Ancient) and install Andromeda as Steward of the House of Black.… Arcturus was looking forward to this.

As the sleepy Wizengamot members shuffled in and took their seats, Griselda Marchbanks looked around and smiled to herself, because as usual for a minor session such as this, most of the more powerful Death Eaters and Dumbledore faithful were absent, she was surprised to see Malfoy there until she saw the item about a trade concession that he wanted to get through. As soon as they had the expected Wizengamot members and the Druids' Alliance members in the court, she ordered the court sealed and asked if anyone wanted to table any new business before they began with the scheduled items. Some of them started to complain that that wasn't how it was done so she had the Clerk of the Court send copies of parchments to all the sitting members to prove that this was indeed to be how it was _supposed_ to be done, some still tried to complain but they were shut up by the others who recognised that there was no getting around it and Griselda once again asked whether there was any new business to be tabled.

* * *

At that, Frank and Alice stood and Frank announced that as he and Lady Longbottom's condition had been successfully treated by the Healing Facility in Europe his mother, the Longbottom Regent and Steward, had sent them to, he wished to reclaim the Longbottom seat and all Longbottom voting Proxies. Griselda had already joyously welcomed him and Alice back to the land of the living but put on a show of pleased surprise at their appearance and recovery and invited him to identify himself to the court and do so. Frank escorted Alice unhurriedly to the stone (a large crystal actually) present in the chamber for the official identification of Wizengamot members by their Family Magic, unmasking the Longbottom Head of House ring and placing his hands on the stone. The Stone's voice rang out through the chamber. **"Earl Francis John Longbottom. Head of the Noble and Most Ancient House of Longbottom** **and its Associated Houses.** **"**

Without removing his hands from the Stone, Frank stated. "I, Earl Francis John Longbottom. Head of the Noble and Most Ancient House of Longbottom and its Associated Houses, hereby revoke any and all proxies for the seat and votes of the House of Longbottom and all associated houses and reclaim these for myself." The voice rang out again. **"The seat and voting proxies for the** **Noble and Most Ancient House of Longbottom** **and its Associated Houses** **have been vacated and returned to** **Earl Francis John Longbottom** **,** **Head of the Noble and Most Ancient House of Longbottom** **and its Associated Houses.** **"**

Frank escorted Alice up to take their places in the Longbottom box and Augusta greeted them before taking the seat to his left (Alice was on his right, as the current Countess Longbottom).

Griselda smiled to herself as she looked around, asking. "Is there any other new business?"…. knowing that the show had only just begun.

Harry and his Godmother rose in the gallery and bowed and curtsied respectively to her. As no more than a minor member of the Noble House of Vance, Emmeline had been in no position to challenge Dumbledore as the Chief Warlock when he used his power in the Wizengamot to seal James and Lily's wills and proclaim himself Harry Potter's Magical Guardian, but at Sirius' request Gringott had tracked her down and Harry had allocated one of the Potter Baronies to her to make her a Baroness in her own right to improve her standing in the Wizengamot when they used his parents' wills to have her and Sirius formally accepted as his Magical Guardians when he came out of therapy. Harry would have made her a Countess but while it had been kept a secret, she was actually betrothed to Sirius when they became Harry's Godparents so she would be Countess Black when they married as Sirius held the title of Earl Black as Heir to the House of Black. Harry responded.

"Yes My Lady Chief Witch. I wish to claim my seats and voting proxies and assign them to my Regent My Lady."

She had a hard time keeping a grin off her face as she nodded. "Very well My Young Lord… I presume that you are aware of what you must do?"

Harry nodded as he escorted Emmeline to the Stone. "Yes My Lady."

He had unmasked the Potter ring as he approached the Stone, so when he put his hands on the Stone its voice rang out **"Duke Henry James Potter. Head of the Most Noble and Most Ancient House of Potter** **and its Associated Houses.** **"** and the chamber erupted with shouts that this was a joke in very poor taste, seeing as they'd just heard that Harry Potter was dead!

In the midst of this, one of the Death Eaters on the Wizengamot leapt to his feet with his wand out, shouting _**"**_ _ **Die Mudblood Spawn!**_ _ **Avada Kedavra!"**_ to send a green spell flashing at Harry. Harry displayed another gift from the Fates as his right hand shot up from the Stone with the Potter Half-Sword blazing into existence as a dagger to bat the spell straight back at its caster. The wizard collapsed as his own spell hit him and Harry pointed the dagger at him. "Who is this who has attacked the Head of the Most Noble and Most Ancient House of Potter and its Associated Houses in such a shameful and cowardly manner?"

The Stone spoke. **"Baronet Augustus Flint. Head of the Minor House of Flint."**

"The Most Noble and Most Ancient House of Potter demands that the Minor House of Flint be eradicated for this unprovoked, shameful and cowardly attack on the Head of the Most Noble and Most Ancient House of Potter and its Associated Houses and hereby claims any and all seats, titles, holdings, moneys, objects and properties belonging to the Minor House of Flint by right of conquest!"

The Stone's voice rang out again. " **T** **he Minor House of Flint** **has been** **eradicated for** **its** **unprovoked** **attack on the Head of the Most Noble and Most Ancient House of Potter** **and its Associated Houses** **and** **any and all** **seats,** **titles, holdings, moneys, objects** **and properties** **belonging to the Minor House of Flint** **have been forfeited to the** **Most Noble and Most Ancient House of Potter by right of conquest.** "

Griselda cast a Silencio over the benches and galleries to silence everyone and then spoke worriedly to Harry, more than a little shocked to see him alive and well, and to watch him just batting away a killing curse like that. "Have you been harmed in any way Duke Potter?"

Harry shook his head. "No, My Lady Chief Witch, but I thank you for your concern."

"We thank the Gods that you are safe…." She took in his determined look, amazed that the child could stand there so calm and resolute after such an experience. "If you are ready, please proceed with your business Duke Potter."

Harry nodded and thanked her as he vanished the dagger in his right hand and placed his hand back on the Stone. "I, Duke Henry James Potter, Head of the Most Noble and Most Ancient House of Potter and its Associated Houses, hereby declare my accepted Magical Guardian, the Baroness Emmeline Vance, to be the Regent for the Most Noble and Most Ancient House of Potter and its Associated Houses."

With that he released the Stone and Emmeline stepped forward to take his place. "I, Baroness Emmeline Vance, accepted by Magic as the Magical Guardian of Duke Henry James Potter, Head the Most Noble and Most Ancient House of Potter and its Associated Houses, hereby accept the position and responsibilities of the Regent for the Most Noble and Most Ancient House of Potter and its Associated Houses!"

The Stone's voice rang out again. **"Baroness Emmeline Vance, Magical Guardian of Duke Henry James Potter** **, Head of the Most Noble and Most Ancient House of Potter** **and its Associated Houses** **, is accepted as the Regent for the** **Most Noble and Most Ancient House of Potter** **and** **its** **Associated Houses!"**

She released the Stone and stepped back so that Harry could again take her place. "I, Duke Henry James Potter, Head of the Most Noble and Most Ancient House of Potter and its Associated Houses, hereby revoke any and all proxies for any and all seats and votes of the Most Noble and Most Ancient House of Potter and its Associated Houses and order them to be assigned to the Regent for the Most Noble and Most Ancient House of Potter and its Associated Houses, Baroness Emmeline Vance… and I order all seats of the House of Potter and its Associated Houses to be vacated _now_!"

The Potter and Flint seats and three others flashed and ejected the ones sitting in them (along with Flint's body) and the Stone's voice rang out. **"The seat** **s** **and voting proxies for the** **Most Noble and Most Ancient House of Potter** **and its** **A** **ssociated** **H** **ouses have been vacated and** **assigned to Baroness Emmeline Vance, Regent** **for the** **Most Noble and Most Ancient House of Potter** **and its** **A** **ssociated** **H** **ouses."**

Harry and Emmeline ascended the stairs to the top tier and took their place in the Potter Box, stopping briefly to respond to Frank, Alice and Augusta as they asked whether Harry was okay.

Griselda didn't bother hiding her grim smile as she waved for four of Dumbledore's puppets to be picked up off the floor and dumped on seats in the gallery and Flint's body to be disposed of as she asked. "Anyone else?"

It was Hermione's turn next as she stood with Luna and her mother Pandora and they curtsied to the Chief Witch before approaching the Stone for her to be accepted as Countess Hermione Jean Granger, Head of the Noble and Most Ancient House of Dagforth-Granger and its Associated Houses. She declared her Magical Guardian, Baroness Pandora Lovegood, to be Regent for the Noble and Most Ancient House of Dagforth-Granger and its Associated Houses, and because the old fool occupying the Dagforth-Granger seat was sneering at her and as good as daring her to do her worst, she did what Harry had done.

Then Luna took her turn at the Stone. This was the first of the Founders' titles they were openly claiming, because the only other free house that Luna was Head of was a Most Ancient Druid House, which wasn't on the top tier with the others, and the Hufflepuff seat had been occupied for the last forty odd years by a branch of the Hufflepuff family who definitely didn't embody Hufflepuff principles, so Luna was looking forward to forcefully ejecting him from her seat as Harry and Hermione had the other arrogant old fools. The formula was slightly different with Luna, in that she was declaring her Mother as her Regent, rather than her Magical Guardian, but other than that it all played out the same, to the point of the arrogant old fool being shocked right out of the Hufflepuff seat.

Griselda waited until Luna, Hermione and Pandora had taken their place in the Hufflepuff box (after stopping at the Potter box to assure themselves that Harry was okay) and the old fool had been deposited in the gallery before looking back up at the gallery. "Is there anyone _else_? I must say that this has proven to be the most eventful Wizengamot session that I have ever seen!"

Arcturus stood and bowed to her with a smile. "Yes, My Lady Chief Witch, there is at least one more."

Once he had been accepted as Duke Arcturus Sirius Black, Head of the Most Noble and Most Ancient House of Black and its Associated Houses, he did what he'd been wanting to do since he saw young Harry do it. "I hereby revoke any and all proxies for any and all seats and votes of the Most Noble and Most Ancient House of Black and all associated houses and reclaim these for myself.… and I order all seats of the House of Black and its Associated Houses to be vacated _now_!"

Griselda tried to keep a straight face when she admonished him as the dazed or unconscious figures were being picked up off the floor and deposited in seats in the Gallery. "Was that _really_ necessary Duke Black?"

Those who didn't already know saw where Sirius Black had gotten his roguish charm and irrepressible humour from as Arcturus bowed to her again with a smile. "I do apologise My Lady Chief Witch, it just looked like so much fun when I saw my Cousin Dorea's Grandson, the young Duke Potter, do it that I couldn't resist!"

* * *

She shook her head at him. "If that's all then…."

The old rogue disappeared as he shook his head grimly. "I am afraid not My Lady"

She was surprised at that, as the plan had been for him to do this later, but she nodded to herself as she reviewed the voting seats and realised that this would help prevent the votes going against them, so she waved for him to continue.

Arcturus was an imposing figure as he looked up at the Wizengamot benches with his hands still on the Stone. "It has recently come to my attention that husbands and wives of members of the House of Black, and even members of the House of Black themselves, have _willingly_ allowed themselves to become branded slaves of the common Muggleborn bastard who falsely styled himself as _Lord_ Voldemort. I have been shown irrefutable proof that this so called _Lord_ Voldemort was in fact the son of a common Muggle, born out of wedlock to Merope Gaunt, a Squib from a now extinct supposedly Pureblood family which falsely claimed to be descended from the great Salazar Slytherin, when they were in fact descended from one of his untitled Squib relatives. This Squib had to use love potions to entrap the Muggle son of a wealthy land owner in Little Haggleton into getting her pregnant, but as soon as he broke free of the effects of the love potion he officially cut off any and all ties with her and rejected her unborn infant in disgust. The Squib died just after he was born and the infant was given his common Muggle father's name, with her father's name as his middle name, Tom Marvolo Riddle. Riddle was raised in the Muggle Wool's Orphanage in London until the _G_ _reat_ Albus Dumbledore came to take him to Hogwarts, where he obviously managed to misrepresent himself as a Pureblood Noble because he and his made up title of _Lord_ Voldemort…. which is in fact nothing more than a more impressive sounding anagram of his common Muggle name…. were accepted by the gullible sons of some of the Pureblood houses…"

He flicked an eye across the ones he was referring to or their sons who were present. "But as bad as their shame was in believing his lies and serving a common Muggleborn bastard like that, their sons' and daughters'…. and yes…. some of the House of Black's as well…. was far _worse_ , because they _willingly_ allowed themselves to be branded with the bastard's mark, which he used to call them to serve him at his whim, I shudder to think what these sons and daughters of the respected Noble Houses of Magical Britain did to satisfy the whims of this illegitimate common Muggleborn impostor…."

He looked around, and the brighter witches and wizards in the chamber were fairly sure what was coming.

"But I will no longer allow the Most Noble and Most Ancient House of Black and its Associated Houses be associated with this shame! Therefore I am hereby terminating any and all marriages between sons and daughters of the House of Black and its Associated Houses and _any_ who wear the brand of the illegitimate common Muggleborn impostor Tom Marvolo Riddle _or_ have served him or the ones who wear his brand and reclaiming any and all titles, holdings, moneys, objects and properties that rightfully belong to the Most Noble and Most Ancient House of Black and its Associated Houses, and any and all seats or moneys earned from anything rightfully belonging to the House of Black and its Associated Houses, Effective Immediately!"

" **All marriages of children of the** **Most Noble and Most Ancient House of Black** **and its Associated Houses** **to the branded slaves or servants of the Illegitimate common Muggleborn impostor Tom Marvolo Riddle or servants of those who wear his brand have been terminated and** **all titles, holdings, moneys,** **object** **s** **and propert** **ies** **that rightfully belong to the Most Noble and Most Ancient House of Black** **and its Associated Houses** **, and any and all** **seats or** **moneys earned from anything rightfully** **belonging to the House of Black** **and its Associated Houses** **are to be returned to** **the House of Black** **and its Associated Houses.** "

A good number of Wizengamot seats lit up to indicate that the ones sitting in them no longer had any right to occupy them and most of these people scrabbled to their feet to avoid being forcibly ejected as Arcturus went on. "I also cast any sons and daughters of the House of Black and its Associated Houses who wears the brand of the illegitimate common Muggleborn impostor Tom Marvolo Riddle or have served him or the ones who wear his brand and reclaim any and all titles, holdings, moneys, objects and properties that rightfully belong to the Most Noble and Most Ancient House of Black and its Associated Houses, and any and all seats or moneys earned from anything rightfully belonging to the House of Black and its Associated Houses, effective immediately!" A few more Wizengamot seats lit up, but more to the point, many of of the ones who had just been cast out of the House of Black and its Associated Houses collapsed as they lost their Family Magic.

" **All children of the** **Most Noble and Most Ancient House of Black** **and its Associated Houses** **who are the branded slaves or servants of the Illegitimate common Muggleborn impostor Tom Marvolo Riddle or servants of those who wear his brand have been cast out of the Most Noble and Most Ancient House of Black and its Associated Houses and** **all titles, holdings, moneys,** **object** **s** **and propert** **ies** **that rightfully belong to the Most Noble and Most Ancient House of Black** **and its Associated Houses** **, and any and all** **seats or** **moneys earned from anything rightfully** **belonging to the House of Black** **and its Associated Houses** **are to be returned to** **the House of Black** **and its Associated Houses.** "

Arcturus snorted as he watched his Cousin Pollux, Andromeda's Grandfather, collapse as he lost the Black Family Magic, and turned to Andromeda as he made a snap decision. "Andromeda, I have changed my mind, you will not serve as the House of Black's Steward as Baroness Tonks..."

He could see that she had misinterpreted what he was saying, but while disappointed, she was still willing to do her duty to the House of Black and shook his head... She was far better than most in the House of Black but her family had _demand_ _ed_ that she be banished from the House for the _crime_ of marrying a Muggleborn when they were willingly becoming _slaves_ to another Muggleborn. She was a good girl so he didn't keep her in suspense. "No, you will be serving as the Black Steward as _Countess_ Tonks! It would appear that the Black Family Magic has decided that your Grandfather, who insisted that you be cast out of the House of Black for the crime of marrying an honest Muggleborn who had no false shame about his origins, went too far in serving his own Muggleborn master who tried to hide what he was, because he has been stripped of the Black Family Magic and his title, so you will be the Countess of Desmond…. Actually, I believe that I will give your sister's title to Nymphadora, so that she will be a Baroness in her own right for the next fifty or more years until she inherits your title…."

Andi struggled to hold back from hugging him for that, but she maintained the proper decorum, and Arcturus put his hands on the Stone again. "I, Duke Arcturus Black, Head of the Most Noble and Most Ancient House of Black and its Associated Houses, do hereby bestow the vacated title of Countess of Desmond upon Andromeda Tonks, Daughter of the House of Black, and proclaim her Steward of the Most Noble and Most Ancient House of Black and its Associated Houses."

He stepped back and Andi took his place. "I, Countess Andromeda Tonks, Daughter of the House of Black, hereby accept the position and responsibilities of Steward of the Most Noble and Most Ancient House of Black and its Associated Houses and its Associated Houses!"

The voice rang out again. **"** **Countess Andromeda Tonks,** **Daughter of the House of** **Black** **, is accepted as** **Steward of** **the** **Most Noble and Most Ancient House of** **Black** **and** **its** **Associated Houses."**

Andromeda had to hang onto the stone to steady herself at that, because she'd forgotten that the position of Steward of multiple large and powerful houses comes with a rather large boost in Family Magic and Knowledge.

Arcturus bowed to Griselda again. "I thank you for your forbearance My Lady Chief Witch and apologise for any delays that I may have caused in the proceedings of this session of the Wizengamot..." but the ways his eyes were dancing said that he'd enjoyed every second of it, and would do it again in a heartbeat if he could and with another bow he escorted Andromeda up to the Black Box on the top tier of the Wizengamot seats.

* * *

Griselda looked around, asking "Is there any _other_ new business to be tabled?" and she finally got what she'd been expecting fifteen or twenty minutes ago, Amelia stepping forward.

"Yes, My Lady Chief Witch, the Department of Magical Law Enforcement wishes to table the trial of a marked Death Eater who has recently been apprehended after evading capture for nearly six years, along with trials of several parties attempted line theft of Most Noble and Most Ancient House and Noble and Most Ancient Houses and quite possibly trials of other related events."

"Very well Madam Bones, I believe that everyone here will agree that these criminal matters take precedence over the minor items that were scheduled for this session, so please present your first case… This is certainly not the boring session I believed that I would be presiding over when I was nominated to preside over this morning's session, I can tell you!"

Amelia tried to cover up a smile as she nodded. "Yes My Lady Chief Witch, the DMLE calls Peter Pettigrew!"

The Wizengamot members and people in the gallery would have sworn that it was impossible to be any more shocked after seeing Lord and Lady Longbottom walking in hale and hearty and apparently none the worse for wear barely three weeks after being as good as dead in St Mungo's, those children using the Rule of Magic to physically eject interlopers from their Wizengamot seats and the young Duke Potter batting away a killing curse as if it were nothing. _And_ hearing the head of one of the oldest and most powerful Noble Houses of Magical Britain state categorically that the supposed champion of the Pureblood Noble cause was in fact a common Muggleborn bastard that his Squib mother had had to use love potions to get impregnated with, and who'd fooled the sons of Pureblood Noble Houses into following him as _Lord_ Voldemort and being willingly branded as slaves to be controlled by him. The fact that Duke Black was willing to, and did, terminate every marriage between a child of the House of Black to any servant of this impostor and also cast every child of the House of Black who served him out of the House of Black spoke to his conviction of the truth of this. And though it was noted that he had been canny enough to reclaim everything of value that belonged to the House of Black from them before he cast them out, he had reduced the House of Black by dozens, or more likely scores of members through his proclamations.

But now, after all that, the DMLE brought in the one who had been awarded the Order of Merlin First Class for facing his supposed murderer Sirius Black (Grandson of the same Duke Black who'd just caused such a stir, some noted) six years ago when he was supposedly killed, and the Director of the DMLE's comments implied that _Peter Pettigrew_ was in fact the marked Death Eater who had betrayed the Potters to their death! The reporters in the gallery were thanking their lucky stars that they had drawn the short straws to cover this morning's _boring_ session!

* * *

The extent of the shift in the balance of power was noted when, in response to the expected objections to forcing Pettigrew to be questioned under Veritaserum, Lord Longbottom proposed that it be put to the vote that until further notice, _anyone and everyone_ could be forced to testify under Veritaserum and the Potter Regent seconded it. It appeared that the Druids' Alliance could have carried the vote without any assistance, but most other Wizengamot members voted with them, desperate to be on the winning side.

The Chief Witch silenced everyone except for herself, Madam Bones and Pettigrew when members of the Wizengamot tried to drown out Pettigrew's testimony under Veritaserum, and it wasn't missed that Pettigrew named those members as marked Death Eaters, which Lord Longbottom and Duke Black confirmed by removing the sleeves of their robes. A number of witches and wizards in the gallery tried to do a runner at that point but they found that the chamber was quite literally sealed. The Officers of the Court didn't bother waiting for one of the Lords to remove the sleeves of their robes this time, they did it themselves, and everyone who had tried to do a runner was added to the growing collection of Death Eaters waiting to be questioned.

It didn't take too long to get the vote to strip the Order of Merlin from Pettigrew and have him put through the Veil of Death passed. An angry Duke Potter stood up at the point and asked why Pettigrew had been awarded the Order of Merlin _First Class_ for _supposedly_ being killed by Sirius Black, something that obviously didn't happen so whoever supposedly investigated it was almost certainly involved in framing his Godfather… but his parents, who _were_ actually murdered by the so-called _Lord_ Voldemort when Pettigrew, their _actual_ Secret Keeper, betrayed them to his master, got _nothing_!

One of Dumbledore's supporters piped up at that point to say that Black had obviously been working with Pettigrew, then smugly added, "But unfortunately we won't be able to confirm that by questioning _him_ , because I hear he got himself kissed by a dementor..."

At that point he was cut off by a hearty laugh from up in the gallery where Sirius had cancelled the notice-me-not charm and stood up in jeans and a T shirt with splendid Acromantula silk robes draped over his arm, along with Ted Tonks. He said "As Muggles are want to say, the reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated…. I'm sorry Grandfather, I will put my robes on in a minute, but in view of all the accusations about me being a Death Eater, I wanted Madam Bones to have the opportunity to examine my arms and satisfy herself that I do not carry Riddle's brand first. Then I will gladly put the robes on and answer any and all questions Madam Bones wants to ask me under Veritaserum….. But I insist that _he_ …." pointing to the one who was accusing him "Also proves that he has no dark mark and testifies under Veritaserum about how he knows so much about the plot to kill me by letting the dementors into my cell!"

Griselda silenced the wizard and signalled the officers of the court to drag him down to be questioned after Sirius. Being a coward, it didn't take more than the threat to put him in Azkaban with the dementors that he seemed to find so amusing to make him tell everything about how he'd been Dumbledore's go between with the Warden and guards at Azkaban, and who he'd paid to open Sirius' cell so that the dementors could get to him and shut him up. He thought that coming clean like that would have gotten him let off, until Amelia informed him of the automatic death sentence that applied to even attempting to kill the Head or Heir of a Most Ancient House under the irrevocable Druids' Laws, and that Sirius was the Heir of record for _two_ Most Noble and Most Ancient Houses.

Griselda looked grim as she said "Indeed! Unless anyone wishes to try to present a valid argument that this wizard _didn't_ play a key role in the attempted assassination of the Heir of record for two Most Noble and Most Ancient Houses, I will call for a vote on the matter."

Less than a minute later, the wizard joined Pettigrew and the other Death Eaters sentenced to go through the Veil of Death and the Warden and the rest of the named guards were being brought in from Azkaban via a Goblin Floo in set up in a side chamber. Given that Sirius was the Heir of Record for the Most Noble and Most Ancient House of Black and its Associated Houses, Ted had screwed compensation of over Twenty Thousand Galleons a month out of the court for the Heir Black's suffering and being put in a position to be assassinated by the Ministry of Magic.

A quiet reminder of the fact that most of the Death Eaters in Azkaban had also killed, or tried to kill, the Heads and Heirs of many Noble and Ancient and above houses had all of Azkaban's Death Eaters being brought in as well to be re-tried (in Director Bones' new magic suppressing manacles).

Barty Crouch Senior had been brought in to answer questions about his part in throwing the Heir Black into Azkaban without a trial, and as soon as Barty _Senior_ was in the chamber, they grabbed Barty Junior from their house. There was even more furore when _another_ supposedly dead Death Eater was brought in and he and his father both testified under Veritaserum that the ex-Director of the DMLE had broken his Death Eater son out of Azkaban and had been using the Unforgivable Imperious curse to keep him under control for the last six years, so _both_ Barty Crouches joined the group that went through the Veil of Death and the Minor House of Crouch was eradicated, forfeiting everything it owned to its victims. The Minor houses of Dumbledore's go-between and Azkaban's Warden and his Deputy got the same treatment.

As soon as Sirius was cleared, he was made to confirm his identity with the Stone. When its voice rang out with " **Earl Sirius Orion Black, Heir to the Most Noble and Most Ancient House of Black and its Associated Houses.** " there could be no question of who he was.

As well as the others who were tried for Attempted Line Theft in regard to Sirius and Harry (which included the supposed Squib Arabella Figg who Dumbledore had set up in the next street to keep an eye on Harry for him, but she turned out to be almost as much of a victim as Harry and the others), they dragged in the Healers from St Mungo's that the hidden mirrors had recorded desperately trying to contact Dumbledore when Augusta suddenly turned up to transfer Frank and Alice to another Healing Facility. They were questioned under Veritaserum and tried, along with the accomplices that they identified in their testimonies. This led to eight more going through the Veil of Death, over a dozen more sentenced to Azkaban and the eradication of two Noble and four Minor Houses, with everything they owned being forfeited to the House of Longbottom.

* * *

A few hours later, people started pounding on the doors, because it had finally been noted that the scheduled Wizengamot session which was only expected to take half an hour was still going over five hours later, and many prominent people had been disappearing through the day. When they opened the doors, the reporters all slipped out to get special editions of their papers run off before the Ministry could stop them, because that marathon Wizengamot session had changed the face of Magical Britain.

Seventeen Wizengamot members had been put through the Veil of Death, only thirteen of them Death Eaters, and another twenty one Wizengamot members were in Azkaban with terms ranging from five years to life. Thirty Seven Ministry and St Mungo's employees had gone through the Veil of Death, including Barty Crouch Senior, and another fifty two were in Azkaban for terms from two years to life. Forty five other Death Eaters, including twenty eight who had been brought in from Azkaban to be retried and the supposedly dead Barty Crouch Junior, had also been tried and put through the Veil of Death. Twenty Five Houses…. five Noble and Ancient, nine Noble and eleven Minor, had been permanently eradicated in Magical Britain and all their titles, seats, holdings, moneys and belongings were split up between the Houses that had been wronged by them.

For all the wealth of sensational items though, the front page of most papers in Magical Britain and Magical Europe would be dedicated to Magical Britain's Chief Warlock and Minister For Magic, because the only thing that had stopped them going through the Veil of Death or spending eternity in Azkaban was the immunity from prosecution for anyone holding their two positions that they themselves had had made into law earlier in their careers, which sparked another debate about the fact that this obviously signalled criminal intent, because why else would they go to the effort of ensuring that they couldn't be prosecuted for criminal activity?

Albus Dumbledore had a clear lead in the number of death sentences he deserved, as the thousands who'd died in Grindelwald's War and the First Wizarding War could be all laid at his feet because he had helped his lover Gindelwald get started along his path and had encouraged instead of correcting the behaviour that turned the Muggleborn orphan Tom Marvolo Riddle into the Dark Wizard using the false identity of _Lord_ Voldemort. Then he had hamstrung anyone fighting against them by trying to prohibit them from replying in kind to lethal attacks, had deliberately undermined any attempts to train Witches and Wizards to defend themselves effectively and done everything he could to shame and vilify anyone who did manage to defend themselves effectively. Then there were the deaths he had a more direct hand in.

He had deliberately refused to warn the Potters and Longbottoms about the attacks he knew were coming from Tom Riddle, in fact he had made certain that the Potters' Secret Keeper was a marked Death Eater that he knew about but they didn't, and removed the Fidelius Charm from Longbottom Hall to let the Death Eaters find it. Then when Riddle managed to kill Duke and Duchess Potter but not their son, the new Duke Potter, he illegally sealed Duke and Duchess Potter's wills, seized their voting proxies and proclaimed himself Harry Potter's magical guardian, placing him with the very people that the Potters were adamant their son would never go anywhere near and setting everything up to ensure that he would be broken physically and mentally so that he'd be easy meat for Riddle when he returned…. All because according to _his_ layman's interpretation of a so-called prophecy he got from a drunken sot, Riddle had to kill the child of the prophecy before he could die, even though the Great Albus Dumbledore had passed up many chances to eliminate Riddle after he'd admitted that he'd gone dark. Just being with those people had almost killed the young Duke Potter several times.

On top of his crimes against the Potters and ensuring that the Death Eaters could get to the Longbottoms, he then spent the next six years paying people to try and kill Lord and Lady Longbottom and the Heir to the House of Black and its Associated Houses to ensure that they couldn't tell anyone about what he'd done to ensure that Riddle got to the so-called child of the prophecy. Therefore he was actively trying to wipe out three of the oldest and most important Noble Houses in Magical Britain for six years.

Of course Dumbledore and Bagnold tried to charge Griselda and the Druids' Alliance with murdering all the ones who had been put through the Veil of Death (especially Dumbledore's pet Death Eater, who he'd been looking for since he disappeared the previous day), and also tried to overturn the convictions of all the ones who were sent to Azkaban, but they were prevented from doing so because all the convictions had been clear-cut, with a mountain of evidence to show that they were justified, _and_ they were struggling to hold onto their own positions in the wake of their _many_ crimes and misdeeds being exposed.


	4. Appalachian Cockroaches and Other Pests

**Yes, I realise that portraying the worst terrorist attacks as magic attacks spilling over into the Muggle world is the easy way out, but JKR used the terrorist angle too…. And no, I _don't_ believe that people in the Appalachian Mountains are all inbred, but I don't think it really hurts anyone to use the old stereotypes once in a while in jest…. I promise _not_ to make Luna's animagus form a golden retriever though, I'm steering clear of blonde jokes in this. ;^)**

 ** **Usual disclaimers, no rights to existing characters, this is not JKR's HP, the real world or a Disney Princess story and there will probably be a few changes in the first hour or so after it's posted because things invariably look different in the published version and I don't always like the way it came out****

Harry, Hermione and Luna spent quite a bit of time revisiting the so-called Rules of Time Travel, among other things, after they turned Magical Britain upside down. The key one was the Butterfly Effect mandate that had been used in just about every time travel story they'd ever read or watched, saying that you couldn't change _anything_ if you went back in time because it could have catastrophic effects as time progressed.

But the thing was, the world had already seemed to be set on the path to Hell on Earth by the time they were sent back. In the twenty years since the magical world believed that the infant Harry Potter had destroyed _Lord_ Voldemort and ended his and his Death Eaters' reign of terror, the vast majority of Voldemort's Death Eaters had not only bought their way out of Azkaban _twice_ , the gold that they'd stolen from their victims had secured their places as the pillars of magical society so they were dictating the direction the magical world was going in. In the timeline they were sent back from, this meant that any evidence of the Death Eaters' trademark rape, torture and murder of anyone they deemed to be beneath them (most notably Muggles, Muggleborn and other magical beings) being on the rise had been covered up by the Ministry of Magic until they struck at the Quidditch World Cup, just before the Triwizard Tournament where Dumbledore set up Harry to be Voldemort's sacrificial goat so that the _Great_ Albus Dumbledore could give his waning star a boost by once again becoming the supposed vanquisher of the _Dark Lord_.

Voldemort's Horcruxes had all been destroyed by the time Harry faced him for the final confrontation in the Battle of Hogwarts in May Ninety Eight, which made it possible to actually kill him, but once again the Pureblood bigots in the Wizengamot ensured that their ex-Death Eater (they stopped being Death Eaters when Voldemort died but their actions didn't change) relations had no trouble buying their freedom and maintaining their place in society. After that, it was even worse than it had been in the war because the ex-Death Eaters and their like minded Pureblood associates did whatever they wanted without fear of retribution from anyone… and what they did when they stopped fearing what Voldemort may do to them if they interfered with any of his plans was terrible.

They just kept growing stronger and nothing stopped their on-going orgy of rape, pillage, torture and murder, because most who tried were either killed by them or demoted, framed and imprisoned or set up to be killed by those in power who were determined to maintain the status quo. Harry and Ron had been accepted as Junior Aurors and Hermione and Luna were snapped up by Saul Croaker for the Department of Mysteries as soon as they finished sitting their NEWTS a few weeks after the Battle of Hogwarts, and both Harry and Ron had been promoted to Senior Aurors by the time Harry and the girls were poisoned in September Two Thousand and One. Harry was the only Auror who ever got away with actively going after the ex-Death Eaters and other Pureblood bigots who were attacking those of _lesser_ blood status, and the only reason _he_ did was only because he was the _Great_ Harry Potter, the Boy Who Lived, Hero of Hogwarts and Magical Britain's Saviour. Hermione and Luna helped him track down the ones he was going after in his free time because the official workload his bosses in the DMLE kept him tied up with was all inconsequential crap intended to keep him well away from the ex-Death Eaters and other Pureblood animals.

In retrospect, the way that Ron had always been going on and on about the fact that Harry should be at home with Ginny, his _wife_ , instead of running off on wild goose chases just because some stupid Muggles got themselves hurt should have been told them something was going on, but Harry and Hermione had just put it down to him being sick of being nagged by Molly and pissed off that Hermione wasn't waiting at home for him, ready to do whatever he wished of her… for that matter the fact that their dear mother-in-law was keeping both of them potioned up to their eyeballs had no doubt effected their reasoning abilities as well. Luckily Saul Croaker was still in charge of the Department of Mysteries after the war, so he had set up Hermione and Luna in their own research office reporting to directly him and made them available to help Harry whenever he needed.

Part of the reason for Hermione and Luna having their own office was that many Purebloods were outraged that a mere _Muggleborn_ (not the word they usually used) like Hermione had been awarded the Order of Merlin…. (Even though it was because Harry had refused to accept his unless she and Ron were also rewarded and she only got the Order of Merlin _Second_ Class like Luna, Ginny and most others who fought in the final Battle of Hogwarts while Ron, who'd deserted them because he was missing Mummy's cooking and hid in the fighting, received the Order of Merlin First Class and was proclaimed Hero of Hogwarts like Harry) So she'd been the subject of more than a few attacks in the last three and a bit years before they were sent back. Needless to say their office was well warded and the only place Hermione and Luna didn't wear their dragonskin robes (Luna had been clipped in one of the cowardly sniping attacks on Hermione so the next day Harry took her to get her own dragonskin robes made)…. The sad fact was that the only happy memories they had of that time were from when the three of them were working together in Hermione and Luna's office to bring the ex-Death Eaters and their ilk down, because they and Saul Croaker were the only ones who could get into the office so it was the only place they could let their guards down.

By the time the three musketeers were sent back, the ex-Death Eaters and other Pureblood bigots' reign of terror had spread right across both the Magical and Muggle Worlds, culminating in the event that was referred to as Nine Eleven in the Muggle World just before they left that timeline, because the Muggle American government had been supporting MACUSA in its fight against the ex-Death Eaters, or Terrorists as they were being called in the Muggle World.

(They'd agreed within days of their arrival that this _had_ to have been the trigger for sending them back, because they'd been sent back on the very next significant date in their lives. The only thing Harry and Hermione were really upset about in regard to this was the fact that Luna appeared to have been forced to share their inevitable deaths at that time so that her birthday could be used to tie the events together but Luna argued that being sent back with them had allowed her to save her mother and have the life she was meant to have with them, instead of the lonely, miserable existence she was doomed to in that future.)

The ex-Death Eaters and their Pureblood associates and Muggle Minions were looking unstoppable by that point, and it was deemed only a matter of time before they took over completely, that was why Harry, Hermione and Luna had decided that even if their intervention _did_ bring about a catastrophic event, that would most likely cause less suffering than living in a world under the heels of the ex-Death Eaters and other Pureblood bigots did. It was beginning to look like the time travel stories might have had it arse backwards though, because from what Luna could _see_ in regard to the changes they had made so far was that they had not changed the _amount_ of death and suffering in the world, but they _had_ flipped the identities of those who would be dying and suffering. In the new world that Luna could now see, they still had almost as many hidebound Pureblood bigots who looked down on any they deemed to be beneath them, but the difference was that those bigots no longer had the wealth and power they would need to dictate the direction of the Magical World and hence the Muggle World, in fact their lives were becoming increasingly difficult. That was an outcome that they would all be happy to see.

That was why Hermione had formed her new time travel theory, the 'Fates' Time Travel Constant', where changes just made magic redirect the outcome of events along the timeline to new victims. Considering that he had supported this theory of her's wholeheartedly, Harry thought that it was quite unfair of Hermione and Luna to tell him that _his_ maxim was just _wrong_ , even after he had changed its name from the 'Appalachian Cockroach Rule' to the 'Pureblood Bigot Rule'…. This maxim was that bigoted inbred idiots were like cockroaches, impossible to stamp out, so all you could do was hope that they didn't take too long to die out on their own.

* * *

It _was_ frustrating to discover that even after they'd eradicated all those Death Eaters' and other malcontents' Houses and allocated their seats and votes to their victims' Houses, the hidebound so-called Purebloods and their minions could still outvote the Druids' Alliance in the Wizengamot if they managed to out their differences aside and aligned themselves against them, unless the 'Grey' Houses supported the Alliance. Apparently, all it took to make the traditional enemies in the 'Light' and 'Dark' House put their differences aside and work together was to have someone oppose their belief that they had the inalienable right to do whatever they felt like to anyone they deemed to be beneath them with impunity. They'd achieved quite a bit by outmanoeuvring the 'Traditional' Houses in that minor scheduled session, but the Traditional Houses could still control the vote if they really wanted to by pooling all their votes and swaying or pressuring enough of the Neutral Houses to support them.

Another thing that was frustrating was that Flint's attempt to kill Harry had driven the question they'd wanted to be asked, why Harry didn't look anything like he did on the book covers, from everyone's minds, but Luna came up with a way to get that question back in front of people. When the initial flurry of headlines about the trial started to die down, Xeno published an interview with Harry about what he'd used to bat that killing curse back at Flint, and manoeuvred the question about his appearance into the interview. Another benefit of doing it this way was that it let them publicly rub the Johnny-come-lately Noble and Minor Houses and the few Ancient Houses which began as Noble Houses that made up the so-called 'Traditional' Pureblood Houses' noses in the fact that the thirty seven Most Ancient and Ancient Houses that had begun as the Druid Houses that Magical Britain arose from all had enchanted Goblin silver Heirloom weapons like the half-sword that Harry had called and used to bat the killing curse away, but they _didn't_. This would hopefully make the people of Magical Britain start wondering how 'Traditional' they could be if they hadn't begun as British Druid Houses.

The questions about how the half-sword had flashed into existence in his hand and how he'd moved so fast to bat the curse back at the caster allowed Harry to segue into how he'd been forced to learn how to move fast to dodge or fend off attacks in the six years he spent in his Muggle so-called relatives' home being treated more like a House Elf who was constantly being punished than a child who was related to them. The only form of retaliation he'd ever gotten away with to any degree was when he _accidentally_ sent the hard and sharp cornered objects his whale of a cousin was always throwing at him straight back at him occasionally, he still got beaten of course, but not as badly because they didn't believe that he was smart enough to do it on purpose and even they conceded that it was only natural to try and stop things hitting you.

Xeno tossed in a sceptical question at that to give Harry a chance to talk about how often he'd been burnt, beaten, starved and injured by those people, and how almost dying from the beating he received in Mid-September had somehow made his magic break through enough of the blocks that had been placed on his memories and magic for him to suddenly have a clear memory of feeling safe in his mother's arms and pop away to the location in that memory. The fact that he arrived in the Gringotts banking chamber in the middle of the night had Gringotts' Security Goblins charging into the chamber, but when he said his name they had called for the Potter Account Manager, who immediately had Harry taken to one of their Healing Facilities under Gringotts to heal the life threatening injuries that had been inflicted on him.

He'd been told that the Goblin healers had had to remove many layers of dangerously restrictive bindings on his growth, memories and magic, as well as what they called an abomination that had been placed on him before they could heal him and they had convinced him to accept his Head of House rings to assist his healing and recovery. Some of the Family Knowledge that came with the Family Magic had shown him how to call and use the Potter Heirloom weapons and that, combined with the six years he'd spent constantly dodging and fending off attacks and things being thrown at him by the people he was left with was how he'd fended off the curse thrown at him in the chamber.

Xeno's question about why he didn't look like his image on the cover of the Harry Potter books was easily answered by the fact that he had changed back to what he was told was his natural appearance when all those blocks and bindings and compulsion and glamour spells cast on him were removed…. He'd never even heard of the Harry Potter stories before he suddenly appeared in the Magical World in Mid-September and up until then he'd been living the life of the lowliest House Elf, so he certainly didn't have any of the wonderful adventures that were described in those stories. Someone had obviously been writing and selling those stories to make money off the Harry Potter name, and the fact that they knew what he'd looked like before the blocks and spells were removed and were confident that no-one would come forward to challenge them meant that they had to have been involved in placing and reapplying the glamour spells on him, and leaving him with those people.

The compulsion spells were something Xeno hadn't heard about before so he asked Harry about them. Harry explained that from what he was told, he had been compelled to be lazy and forgetful, and to believe that he deserved to be treated the way he was because he was stupid, lazy and useless. But those compulsions, the glamour spells and blocks and bindings had apparently been reapplied at least a dozen times so his magic must have been fighting to overcome them.

* * *

The 'Traditional' Houses and Dumbledore tried to stop these stories getting out, but as Dumbledore had found when he went to the Rookery where the Lovegoods had lived and Xeno Lovegood had been publishing the Quibbler to threaten him into retracting the 'Coming or Going' story, the older Wizarding couple who had bought the Rookery off the Lovegoods claimed to have no idea where the Lovegoods had gone and the new wards placed around the house had brought Amelia Bones with a team of her picked Aurors. When she caught him trying to use Legilimens on the old couple Bones threatened to arrest him, and her response when he said that she couldn't do that had sent a shiver of fear shooting up his spine. "No Dumbledore, you're wrong! I may not be able to prosecute you, but there's nothing at all to stop me arresting you and locking you away in one of our facilities until your friends manage to find you and get you out. We have facilities that would take years to find, and we can easily move you around to keep you hidden longer." He'd left immediately and hadn't gone near the old Lovegood house since then.

One thing was certain though, wherever Lovegood was producing the Quibbler now was much bigger than their old house, because with that first story about Dumbledore trying to stop Lord and Lady Longbottom being taken out of St Mungo's it had gone from a light hearted Magizoology hobby periodical that very few people read to a serious news periodical that rivalled and possibly exceeded the Daily Prophet's distribution.

As well as the interviews with Harry to try and make people start thinking about what was really going on in Magical Britain, Xeno interviewed Frank Longbottom to get his reaction to Albus Dumbledore attempting to prevent the Longbottom Regent and Steward moving him and his wife to another Healing Facility where they were in fact healed in a matter of weeks after spending over six years in St Mungo's without any improvement. He also started a series of articles to educate people on the real history and traditions of Magical Britain, and in an unprecedented move for news periodicals in Magical Britain, named the accepted texts on the matter and encouraged readers to check the facts themselves. Dumbledore and the Ministry tried to stop this, but the Hogwarts Board had already moved to stop Dumbledore removing those books from the Hogwarts Library and recover other texts that he'd already removed, and they found that the major book sellers and publishing houses in Magical Britain had all recently gained major stakeholders who didn't bend to threats, and who could and did put security witches and wizards in their places of business to stop the Ministry people sent in to forcibly remove these books. While they hadn't done this for money and the majority of the sheeple in Magical Britain refused to consider checking the facts, the third or so who did made for record sales of history texts, and it only increased when the Daily Prophet, which most of Magical Britain believed unquestioningly, started saying the same thing.

* * *

Half of the Ministry heard Amelia when she was raging at the ones who sent DMLE witches and wizards with the Ministry officials to try and threaten the book sellers into backing down without her approval, and then faced down Minister Bagnold when she tried to save face by dismissing her for refusing to reinstate the senior DMLE people who'd ordered Hitwizards, Aurors and Law Enforcement Patrol Officers out on raids on the book sellers. As soon as Bagnold backed down because Amelia demanded that the matter be taken to the Wizengamot, as was her right, Amelia issued a directive that any and all DMLE personnel who acted on _any_ order that had not originated from _her_ would be dismissed, and quite possibly charged with a criminal offence as well. Two days later she expanded on that, demanding that everyone in the DMLE give unbreakable oaths that they would comply with this order, and anyone refusing to give the oath would be dismissed. It wasn't until they gave the oath that they discovered that she had slipped more than that into the oath and quite a number of them lost their magic because they were Death Eaters or supported similar Pureblood bigot beliefs.

That was when Bagnold began to discover just how dangerous Amelia Bones could be, because Bones used the official Ministry rule book and specific donations that had been made to the DMLE to replace all those Pureblood bigots with people who actually met the DMLE's requirements, irrespective of their blood status, and to double the size of the DMLE. Bagnold tried to order her to get rid of any new personnel who didn't meet the Ministry's standard requirements in regard to blood status and hand over the money that had been donated to train, equip and pay for the extra personnel, but Amelia stood up to her with proof that she was working within the _official_ Ministry regulations, rather than the Pureblood bigots' practices that had been allowed to rule the roost in the Ministry without ever having been approved by Wizengamot vote, pointed out that nothing in the _official_ Ministry regulations required department size to be restricted to only what the Ministry budget allocations provided for… She stopped at that point to inform the Minister that if the DMLE's budget was further reduced because external donations had been made to assist the DMLE in getting back up to its proper strength, she'd be demanding that the Wizengamot intercede, and also demanding a formal investigation into where all the money that had been taken from the DMLE's budgets over the time that she'd been the Director of the DMLE had actually gone to. She also showed her copies of the magical contracts for the new donations which specifically stated that these donations could _only_ be used to train, equip and pay the personnel who were being hired to replace the ones the DMLE had lost because of budget cuts, so any attempts to misappropriate these donations would not only result in the donations recalled, they would also result in the contributors demanding official investigations to be made into who was attempting to restrict the DMLE's capability to protect the people of Magical Britain.

Between that, the fact that Bones knew that she could force any attempt to dismiss her to be a Wizengamot matter and most of the ones who'd paid her to hamstring the DMLE having lost most of their gold and power, Bagnold decided to steer clear of the DMLE from now on…. In fact she'd give them back much of the budget that had been diverted from them to other departments in recent years because the Druids' Alliance had already pulled the teeth of most of the supporters of the Heads of the Departments that their budget had gone to, while Bones' supporters were obviously on the rise.

* * *

But Bagnold and the rest of her ilk had another problem. They'd always used the Daily Prophet to make the people of Magical Britain believe whatever they wanted them to, but just after that disastrous Wizengamot session, Rita Skeeter, Barnabus Cuffe and a number of Ministry officials and other worthies were arrested. Skeeter was charged with being an unregistered animagus and using that ability to spy on people to get dirt on them for Daily Prophet and Witch Weekly articles and blackmail and she'd had her magic bound before being sent to Azkaban for ten years. Cuffe and the others were charged with failing to notify the DMLE of Skeeter's status as an unregistered animagus and making use of her ability to obtain information illegally for financial gain and other nefarious purposes. Their sentences ranged from fines of Fifty Thousand Galleons to life in Azkaban with his magic bound, eradication of his House and forfeiture of everything belonging to his House for the one who'd used the information she obtained for him to commit line theft on a Noble and Ancient House.

It had also been reported that both Bagnold and Dumbledore had been using Skeeter's animagus form to get information on others for them for nefarious purposes, but the real problem came out when they went to the Daily Prophet to instruct them on what stories to put out to show them in a better light and discredit members of the Druid's Alliance. The new editor of the Prophet seemed to be fighting to keep a smile off his face as he informed them that the majority owners of the Prophet had given him strict instructions to ensure that the Prophet was fair and honest in its reporting from now on, and warned him that if he failed to deliver on this, he may well join Cuffe in Azkaban.

Bagnold began to tell the man that she knew the Prophet's majority owners quite well and was confident that they would have given him no such instructions when she suddenly realised that the Prophet's majority owners she'd known had lost everything that day in the Wizengamot. From the new editor's expression she realised that it would be highly unlikely the new majority owners would have any inclination to her any favours, because they were most likely Witches, Wizards or Houses that she'd used her power to attack more than once, so she just turned and left his office without another word.

* * *

Dumbledore, Bagnold and their associates' problems didn't end there though…. The Druids' Alliance had destroyed the strongest of the Pureblood bigots on the Hogwarts Board and regained control of the Board, so Dumbledore only hung onto his position as Hogwarts' Headmaster by the skin of his teeth, and that was in name only. While still _officially_ the Deputy Headmistress, Minerva now ran Hogwarts. She controlled Hogwarts' wards and shared the authority to hire and fire staff, make decisions about courses, finances and punishments with Pomona Sprout and Filius Flitwick.

Their first actions were to fire Argus Filch, Sybill Trelawney and the Pureblood Muggle Studies teacher. Banish Cuthbert Binns and replace him with Bathilda Bagshot, Cancel the Divination course and replace it with a Magical World course taught by Augusta Longbottom, who had a lot of free time now that Frank had taken over the reins of the House of Longbottom again, Rename Muggle Studies to Muggle World, hiring a Muggleborn wizard to bring the students up to date on what was really going on in the Muggle World... And hiring another potions master to replace Snape... the new potions master may not have been Snape's equal at brewing potions, but he was easily ten times the potions _teacher_ Snape was. Minerva made the new Defence Against the Dark Arts master, Julius Selwyn, House Master of Slytherin, He was an ex-auror, and coming from a grey branch of an old Noble House, he had enough background in the subtle political manoeuvring that Slytherin was traditionally famous for to start shaming the thugs who ruled the roost in Slytherin into behaving like proper Slytherins.

Filch was replaced by Arabella Figg, who it turned out was actually a witch, just not a very strong one. When she started at Hogwarts, the new Headmaster Albus Dumbledore had been determined to show that the students would perform better under him than they had any previous Headmasters, so he interfered with the weaker students like Arabella to make them drop out to prevent them dragging Hogwarts' results down. He'd bound Arabella's intellect and magic enough to ensure that she failed her classes so her parents pulled her out of Hogwarts, but kept contact with her so that he could refresh those bindings when necessary. Just about anyone would have been better than Filch and Arabella's life had been ruined by Dumbledore, so they offered her a choice when they removed the bindings he'd put on her, they could set her up to live a more comfortable existence in the Muggle World, or she could take over from Filch as Hogwarts' Caretaker, with assistance from Hagrid, and they'd give her the education in magic that she'd been denied. When she tried to say that she didn't want charity they pointed out that it wasn't charity, because she could do her job better with magic, that was enough to get her to accept.

They had also set up a family emergency to call Hagrid away from Hogwarts so that the Goblins could remove all the bindings, compulsions and memory charms Dumbledore had placed on him. When he was able to think and remember again, Hagrid was furious about what Dumbledore had done to him and Harry, and wanted to tear the old bastard limb from limb, but they managed to calm him down enough to get him to agree to go along with the plan. The Board had also voted to overturn Hagrid's expulsion and return his right to learn and practice magic, so the Goblins dug up the half-sword and other Heirloom weapons that had been made for the Half-Giant son of a currently extinct Druid family. The half-swords were compatible enough for him to use them as wands when he took up his magical education again along with Arabella.

They'd forced Dumbledore to make the announcement that the Hogwarts Board had decided that it was time for a few changes at Hogwarts, so Professor McGonagall would have a lot more authority in school matters as she shared his duties as Headmaster, he turned things over to Minerva at that point and she really threw the kneazle in among the pigeons. She got a fair degree of vindictive pleasure out of announcing that due to her taking on more of the Headmaster's duties, effective immediately, Professor Dumbledore would be sharing the Transfiguration teaching duties with her, as he had been Hogwarts' Transfiguration Master before he became Headmaster and watching Dumbledore trying to control his anger as she told the students that as he was a teacher again, Hogwarts had moved Professor Dumbledore to more appropriate office and quarters that were accessible to the students like the other teachers. He'd been furious when Hogwarts not only refused him access to his old office and quarters, but when he demanded that the rest of his things be moved to his new office and quarters (obviously expecting that they'd expand to take everything), she told him through Myrddin (the Sorting Hat) that most of them had been returned to their rightful owners, and other personal luxuries that were paid for by Hogwarts had been sold to return money to Hogwarts' vaults under Headmistress McGonagall's orders.

Most of the students were up in arms to hear that the three easiest courses, Divination, Muggle Studies and History of Magic, were all no more. Divination was gone, being replaced with a new course called Magical World, Muggle Studies was replaced with a new serious course called Muggle World and no-one was under any illusion that they would be able to sleep in class any more, now that History of Magic was being taught by the witch who wrote the History of Magic text.

Minerva's announcement that Mr Filch had decided to retire and that he was being replaced by Mrs Figg was met by cheers, but the ones looking forward to having fun tormenting the new Squib changed their minds quick smart as Minerva went on to say. "Mister Hagrid will be assisting Missus Figg in her duties..." Because Hagrid had been looking angrier than anyone had ever seen him since he came back from that family emergency he was called away from, and none of them thought that pissing off an angry half-giant would be a much better idea than pissing off an angry giant. "And the Hogwarts Board has agreed that Mister Hagrid and Missus Figg will be able to do their duties more effectively with magic, so Mister Hagrid's unjust expulsion and ban from using magic from over forty years ago has been revoked and both he and Missus Figg, who was _also_ unfairly prevented from completing her magical eduction, will be given every support by the staff to become the properly accredited Wizard and Witch they were meant to be... I expect everyone here to support them in this." No, no-one wanted to have anything to do with upsetting an angry half-giant _Wizard_!

"And that leads us to another long neglected issue, discipline here at Hogwarts! For far too long, inappropriate and even criminal behaviour has gone unpunished at Hogwarts..." No-one missed the looks of disgust that she and the other teachers shot Dumbledore's way at that. "But that ends today! From this point on, any and all inappropriate behaviour will be punished to the full extent of the Hogwarts rules, and the Laws of Magical Britain if it comes to that. If anyone here believes that they can continue doing whatever they wish with impunity and receive no penalty beyond house points being deducted or detentions, you are sorely mistaken. I can assure you that you will _not_ like what happens to you if you test me on this!"

Raucous laughter broke out at the Slytherin table at this and Minerva turned to look at Professor Julius Selwyn, who was the new Potions Master and House Master for Slytherin House at Hogwarts and he nodded grimly. Seconds later a Bombarda spell hit the Slytherin table where most of the laughter was coming from and he was on his feet. "Are you deaf or merely stupid? Headmistress McGonagall just _told_ you that this type of behaviour would not go unpunished any more!"

Dumbledore went to object to him calling Minerva _Headmistress_ McGonagall but shut up and sat back when he saw who was holding the wand that had been jammed into his ribs. He'd used his power as both the Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot and Hogwarts' Headmaster and Filius' status as a Goblin half-breed to ridicule him with impunity over the past few decades, but the look in the half-Goblin's eye reminded him that he had been the European Duelling Champion at least four or five times and he was an extremely powerful Wizard. The Goblin wouldn't stand a chance against the Elder Wand, but that was tucked away in his robes while the Goblin's was sticking into his ribs.

Professor Selwyn went on. "I would suggest that you all pay attention to Headmistress McGonagall because she is _trying_ to stop you making mistakes that would prove very costly for yourselves and your families!"

With that he turned and bowed to Poppy Pomfrey. "I apologise for making work for you Madam Pomfrey, I do not believe that there are any serious injuries there but I felt it necessary to get their attention."

Poppy nodded to him. "That is quite alright Professor Selwyn, you certainly got their attention and if they pay attention to what Headmistress McGonagall is trying to tell them, it is possible that you may have relieved my workload down the track." With that she stood and proceeded to the Slytherin table.

Minerva smiled grimly as she nodded to him. "Thank you Professor Selwyn… Now as I was saying…. From this point on any and all misbehaviour _will_ be punished. You were all supposed to have read the Hogwarts rules before you started here, but copies have been placed in every common room and I strongly suggest that you make yourselves aware of what is in them because you will be punished according to those rules… And if anyone believes that they will not be caught….."

She stopped and turned to Pomona. "Professor Sprout, could you do me a favour please?"

Pomona nodded. "Of course Headmistress McGonagall." (It was so much fun watching Dumbledore almost bursting a blood vessel whenever anyone called Minerva that and she wanted to make sure she got a few in.)

"It would be appreciated if you could move around the castle for a while and fire off spells in the halls and classrooms, and perhaps in the Hufflepuff common rooms and dorms as well?"

Pomona got another one in as she stood. "It would be my pleasure Headmistress McGonagall. This should be quite interesting actually, as I've never witnessed this capability of Hogwarts being utilised…. Actually, Madam Hooch, could you assist me please? This can reportedly be used to prove who fired off what spell first in an altercation, so it would be useful to add that to the demonstration."

Rolanda tried to cover her smile as she nodded and stood up. "I would be delighted to Professor Sprout." They both curtsied to Minerva, chorusing "Headmistress McGonagall." before they left.

Minerva cast the spell to display a large three dimensional image of Hogwarts in the space between the Head Table and the students as Dumbledore looked on, angry and confused. He was furious that they were all behaving as if McGonagall had taken over from him, but they were talking as if this was something that had always been available to the Headmaster, and he'd never heard anything about it before…. Perhaps Dippet was supposed to tell him but he had refused because he was angry about being turfed out?

They weren't about to tell him, of course, but this hadn't been available before now. Harry, Hermione and Luna had used their authority as the Founders' Heirs to transfer control of Hogwarts and its wards to Minerva McGonagall, so to Hogwarts she was the Headmistress now. Then, as soon as they turfed Filch out, they recovered the Marauders' Map that he'd confiscated from Pettigrew and Sirius and Remus Lupin, Sirius and James' partner in crime at Hogwarts who they'd tracked down while Sirius and Harry were going through the re-constructive therapy, explained how they and James had created it. This was combined with a wealth of other information that Hogwarts' wards recorded and passed on to the person in charge of the wards and they and through Myrddin Hogwarts worked together to create this amazing display.

They and the students watched as Pomona Sprout and Rolanda Hooch were shown walking around the castle, firing off spells in the halls, classrooms and dorms. Pomona and Rolanda also staged a number of altercations and as Pomona had said, this amazing display showed who fired what spell and when, so most of the students decided then and there that they would be following the rules from here on in. Of course there would always be some who were sure that they could outsmart it, and those seven or eight Slytherin Seventh Years were in the Infirmary with Poppy so they weren't seeing this, but the brighter students just smiled at that because they knew that at least half those ones were likely to be expelled within a week or two.

Their predictions were soon proven correct, and word soon got around that the DMLE officially accepted the evidence of Hogwarts' wards display, because anyone who had reached their majority was charged, tried and sentenced on the basis of that evidence (anything severe enough to justify a student being expelled from Hogwarts qualified as a crime for adults). The DMLE's only complaint about the display was that the current Minister for Magic would never let them implement something like this in the Ministry building, because it would resolve a great many of the problems they had in the Ministry.

While they couldn't implement it in the Ministry though, Gringott had had it implemented at Gringotts as soon as he saw it, and when the broom went through the Pureblood Houses after their Wizengamot session, the St Mungo's Board saw the same changes as the Hogwarts Board, so many changes were going on at St Mungo's too. Most of the Board there could see the value of being able to have something like this to show dangers to their vulnerable patients so it was voted in straight away. It took them longer to accept that the Ministry's Pureblood hiring and promotion bias had no place in an institution where their patients' very lives depended on the capabilities of their healers, but after being forced to wade through all the death and suffering caused by leaving patients' lives in the hands of Wizards and Witches who's qualifications as Healers came purely from their families' influence and blood status, the Board eventually conceded that point as well, and hiring and promotions practices at St Mungo's were amended to be based soley on the healers' qualifications, not their blood status. One of the other Board members confided to Amelia that they'd been trying to get rid of the healer in charge of one department at St Mungo's for nearly thirty years, ever since their incompetence lost him his first Wife and Heir, so he was glad to see these changes go through.


	5. Falling Off a High Horse

**Just in case any of you are still reading this, anyone who likes Mollywobbles or He-Who-Cannot-Give-A-Straight-Answer at _all_ will not like this chapter, so it would probably be best if you skipped it.**

 ** ** **Usual disclaimers, no rights to existing characters, this is not JKR's HP, the real world or a Disney Princess story and there will probably be a few changes in the first hour or so after it's posted because things invariably look different in the published version and I don't always like the way it came out******

Most of the family found it really frustrating that even after all the proof of Dumbledore's true nature and deeds had been shown, the majority of the sheeple of Magical Britain still believed in him. Luckily that wasn't enough to prevent him losing the position of Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot, because he was still public enemy number one to the Dark Houses so they supported the vote to get rid of him. The truth coming out about his role in Grindelwald's rise and the fact that he hadn't really killed or defeated him as claimed, he just used trickery to capture his old lover and kept him locked up in Nurmengard Castle so that he could have conjugal visits when the urge struck was also enough to make the Magical European members of the ICW demand that he be replaced in as one of Magical Britain's two representatives on the ICW, and that in turn had him thrown out of his position as the Supreme Mugwump of the ICW. Soon after that they tried Grindelwald and sentenced him to be executed so that his victims on the other side of the veil could get their justice.

The cherry on top of Dumbledore falling off his high horse was the fact that Bagnold jumped at the chance to revoke his Order of Merlin, First Class as well as Pettigrew's because they had both been awarded under false pretences. Unlike many of the witches and wizards she was in bed with, Bagnold was no fool, and with Harry Potter, the Boy-Who-Lived, suddenly back from the dead and making good press demanding to know why Pettigrew had been awarded an Order of Merlin First Class for faking his own death and framing Sirius Black for it while his parents were just forgotten after they had been murdered by Voldemort himself while trying to protect their infant son, _and_ creating the protections over Harry that had destroyed Voldemort when he attacked their son…. Not to mention decrying all the terrible things Dumbledore had done to him, Sirius, the Longbottoms and others, she could see the writing on the wall and knew that Dumbledore's time had come to an end, even if the sheeple didn't.

The proof that Dumbledore hadn't valiantly defeated and killed the Dark Lord Grindelwald to finish the war as everyone had been led to believe, he'd just captured and imprisoned his old lover through trickery, gave her the excuse she needed to take his Order of Merlin off him and organise a massive publicity stunt on Halloween to present _three_ Orders of Merlin, First Class, to Harry, one each for him and his parents. Harry wasn't at all happy about Bagnold using his parents' deaths to bolster her own crumbling image like this, but he bowed to Hermione and Luna's logic when they said that he couldn't really refuse after he had so publicly decried the fact that his parents' sacrifice had been forgotten while Pettigrew was hailed as a hero for something he hadn't done. He did, however, have fun using Flint's attack to force Bagnold to give a magical oath to ensure that neither Dumbledore or any servants of Voldemort would be there, which in turn got Amelia the approval to implement the changes to the Ministry's wards needed to activate a display like the one they'd created at Hogwarts….. And if anything, having to officially accede to his demands to bring Goblin guards to protect him while he was in the Ministry building and allow them to use glamours so that they could blend into the crowd had aggravated her even more.

* * *

If Bagnold was going to use Harry's parents' sacrifice to give herself good publicity though, they were going to use the event to their advantage too. Dumbledore had used his position as Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot to get a law passed just after the war ended which stated that all Witches and Wizards in Magical Britain must start their Magical education at Hogwarts at the next September after their Eleventh birthday, and Harry's two brilliant Witches presented the most logical argument for why he would have done this. Hermione and Luna's point was that, with all the powerful families that had been almost destroyed in the Wizarding War, an unprecedented number of young Witches and Wizards would be becoming Heads of their Houses when they reached their majorities, so by preventing them from starting their magical education until after they'd turned Eleven, Dumbledore's Law would ensure that they would be taking over their Houses while they were still at Hogwarts, and therefore be ripe for manipulation by him.

What most of the Wizengamot didn't realise though was that this law directly contravened one of the original irrevocable, immutable and _incontrovertible_ Druids' Laws that formed the foundations of the Laws of Magical Britain. Up until a few decades before the Normal Conquest, Magical Britain had been guided by the Druids' Council, which was made up of the heads of the thirteen most powerful Druid families of the time….. the Druid Houses. When Hogwarts was built at the end of the Tenth Century, the power of the Kings of Britain was growing considerably, so the Druids' Council was reformed into the Wizards' Council, which added seven _Noble_ House (as the Druid Lords' Houses had become known) seats to help in dealings with the Kings of Britain. Therefore the Wizards' Council was made up of the thirteen Druid Houses of the Druids' Council and seven Druid Lords.

At that time the Magical Laws of Britain were codified as the Druid Laws, and due to the power derived from Hogwarts' location at the junction of a number of powerful ley lines, the Great Hall of Hogwarts became the first court of Magical Britain. The original lawmakers had had enough foresight to code in the rules that the Druids' Laws could not be altered, removed or overridden by any subsequent laws of Magical Britain and they also defined what the Druid Houses and Noble Houses were…. Along with the fact that, as they were mostly made up of the Families that had been guiding Magical Britain since the beginning of the Druids in Britain, the twenty seven extant Houses of Magical Britain at that time were classified as 'Most Ancient Houses'.

When the machinations of the new Noble Houses that hadn't been part of the Druid Houses resulted in the Wizards' Council being replaced by the Wizengamot nearly five hundred years later, the number of seats in the Wizengamot was increased to fifty three in an attempt to use their greater numbers to wrest power away from the Druid Houses. The last additions to the Druids' Laws were the clarification of the definition of the Most Ancient Houses as those Houses that were extant in Magical Britain before the Norman Invasion and the addition a new definition of _Ancient_ Houses for those Houses that had been established in the period between the Norman Invasion and the creation of the Wizengamot. They also bowed to the new Noble Houses' pressure and added a new definition of _Minor_ Houses for the non-Noble Gentry, because it had been nearly two hundred years since the last Druid House had been established, but they used the Druid Laws' Rule of Magic to force the incoming Wizengamot to formally acknowledge the fact that the Druids' Laws were irrevocable, immutable and incontrovertible, and also formally accept a weighting system for votes in the Wizengamot….

This weighting system ensured that the votes of Ancient Houses had double the value of new Houses', and Most Ancient Houses had triple the value. On top of this, the votes of a House were an aggregation of the votes of all titles held by the House…. The Baronet, Laird and the like titles that were required to create a Minor House each had one vote, as did a Druid Head of Family. A Barony was worth two votes and a County three, but a Duchy Palatine was worth five votes. This meant that a Baronet or Laird in a Minor House was worth one vote, a Druid Head of Family in an Ancient Druid House two and a Baron in a Noble and Ancient House four… but an Earl or Duke in a Noble and _Most_ Ancient House was worth nine and fifteen votes respectively.

The new Noble Houses hadn't been able to get any seats on the Wizards' Council and were more interested in planning the take over Magical Britain to increase their own power and fortunes than working to help serve the needs of the people of Magical Britain, so they were unaware of the fact that Edward the Third had elevated the four Druid Earls to Dukes, the nine Druid Barons to Earls and the Heads of all Druid Houses to Lairds in the Fourteenth Century…. It hadn't been discussed much outside the Wizards' Council sessions because it didn't really effect the lives of people of Magical Britain, it was just part of the mechanism for self government. The four Dukes still used the title of Lord generally so the Nobles believed that the twenty seven Druids' and Druid Lords' Houses would be easily overwhelmed in the Wizengamot because by their calculations, the maximum number of votes the Druids' and Druid Lords' Houses could hold between them was a hundred and twenty two votes and that would be reduced by the allocation process for Wizengamot seats on the basis of the number of votes held by a House. They expected to be able to shut out most of the Druid Houses with that because the stronger Noble Houses had been taking over lesser houses by right of conquest. What they didn't realise though was that the Druids' Alliance that was made up of the twenty seven extant Houses that had begun as Druid Houses actually held over two and a half times that many votes, three hundred and nineteen in fact, so they wouldn't be dominated anywhere near as easily as expected. The Purebloods' arrogance and overconfidence obviously wasn't a new thing.

* * *

Some of the laws that were codified in the original Druids' Laws specifically related to Hogwarts, and one of them stated that young Witches and Wizards were required to start their magical education once their magic began repeatedly manifesting itself, especially if they could call it at will, so that they could learn how to control their magic and therefore reduce the risk of exposing their world to the non-magical world. The benefits of this law had been well demonstrated during the witch hunts over the next seven or eight Centuries, as they had lost far less Witches and Wizards to the Christian priests than their brethren in Europe did, but by the Nineteenth Century, the people of Magical Britain had largely forgotten about that law because the level of inbreeding in the so-called 'Pureblood' families had degraded their magical abilities so much that most Witches and Wizards' magic generally manifested later and when it did it was weaker than that of those families who's bloodlines were refreshed more often.

What that meant for the family was that under the Druids' Laws, Harry, Hermione and Luna at least were required to begin their magical education straight away because they'd been consciously using their magic since they were toddlers…. Daphne and Astoria Greengrass had also started young and even Neville Longbottom and Susan Bones, who were mistakenly called 'weak', had been manifesting magic for at least a couple of years, so all the children in the family had to begin their magical education. The others readily agreed to Harry's stipulation that, if they were going to be forced to be a part of Bagnold's dog and pony show, they'd be using it to their advantage and getting people talking about the fact that Dumbledore's law which restricted students to not starting at Hogwarts until _after_ they had turned Eleven was in essence illegal because it directly contravened one of the Incontrovertible Druids' Laws.

Of course, this meant that the other children were all encouraged to accept their Heir and Heiresses rings (and the Head of House ring for the Noble and Most Ancient House of Bones for Susan), Neville and Susan engaged in male and female line betrothal contracts between the Houses of Longbottom and Bones and Daphne and Astoria were engaged in male and female line betrothals with a couple of other Houses Harry had to get the maximum boost to their magic and knowledge. Then they spent a busy couple of weeks up to Halloween learning how to put a good show on with their magic, knowledge and manners. The so-called Pureblood Noble Houses who had had control of Magical Britain for the last few centuries only deferred to those they believed to be more powerful than them, so the family were planning to convince them that even the children of the old Druid Houses were more powerful than them which, combined with the fact that the Druids' Alliance could challenge their control of the Wizengamot now, would hopefully be enough to prevail against them.

One thing they made sure that everyone could pull off was using the enchanted goblin silver half-swords from their Houses' Heirloom Weapons. With all of the Noble and Most Ancient Houses as part of the family, they had a wider range of enchanted goblin silver weapons and armour than most Houses. All of the Druid Houses had at least a couple of the half-swords that could be magically altered from dagger to short sword length and their hilts could be magically extended to five foot long spear shafts. Many of the houses also had similar enchanted Goblin silver axes that could be altered from little one hand axes no more than eighteen inches long overall to fearsome battle axes over six feet long, enchanted Goblin silver versions of the Centaurs' bows and arrows with magically enhanced power, simple helmets, forearm guards and greaves and bucklers that could be magically altered between six and eighteen inches across. The Heirloom Weapons and armour of the Most Ancient and Ancient Druid Houses which had been ennobled also included full swords that could be altered from short sword to two handed sword lengths with hilts that could be extended to spear shafts nine or ten feet long and enchanted Goblin silver Almian-rivet and chain mail armour.

There hadn't been many changes to the enchanted Goblin silver weapons, bucklers, helmets and armour over the two and a half thousand years that the High Goblins and their Clans' warriors had been using them because magical commands could be used to alter them to meet the current needs of the wielder. The Druid House versions of the weapons did have one significant difference from the Goblin versions though, in that they had wand cores embedded in them. These weapons were used for the training that Gringott arranged for the kids (and the rest of them) in response to Pandora's suggestion that first night. Hermione and Luna got a start on Harry because they were training while he was in re-constructive therapy, but the reconstruction, and core strength and agility built up in his six years of living as a House Elf, meant that he'd caught up to and passed them soon enough. Like Hagrid, they were using their half-swords configured as daggers as wands, and as they already had ten years of education in Wizarding magic (more in Luna's case), they focussed more on simultaneous casting with both 'wands', as well as wandless and non-verbal spell casting.

* * *

The family laughed when they arrived at the Ministry on Halloween, because just about every Auror, Hitwizard and MLE officer Magical Britain had was there in the Atrium, screening all new arrivals to ensure that Dumbledore and Voldemort's servants didn't sneak in. Minister Bagnold was apparently determined not to lose her magic due to that oath they forced her to give.

As they circulated, Harry, Hermione, Luna and the other kids put on a good show as they went on and on about how excited they were about going to Hogwarts next year. The adults they were talking to generally tried to disabuse them of the notion that they could go to Hogwarts at their age, which was their cue to turn to their parents or guardians and ask what they were talking about.

Word spread like wildfire of what Sirius, Emmeline, Frank, Pandora, Celeste and especially Amelia were telling the kids, that an invalid law had been passed in the Wizengamot a few years ago which said that they couldn't go to Hogwarts until after they had turned eleven, but they would be getting that silly law struck off before the end of the school year because it was in direct conflict with the incontrovertible Druids' Law that said that they _had_ to begin their magical education once they began to manifest their magic, which they and their friends had. Wizards who had been on the Wizengamot and voted that law in were being berated by their wives for holding their children back and Ministry staff were hurrying off to check what the Druids' Laws really said on the matter.

This paid dividends quicker than they'd expected, because people in the audience were shouting at Bagnold when she was trying to milk this event for everything it was worth, demanding to know why she'd gone along with Dumbledore in passing a law that directly opposed one of the Druids' Laws and the Statute of Secrecy, and more importantly, disadvantaged the children of Magical Britain. Bagnold had no idea what they were talking about until one of the more proactive Ministry Officials who'd scuttled off to check this when he heard the muttering came up to show her the two laws they were talking about.

Bagnold knew that she was still in the shite because it had been her responsibility to look into anything she officially supported properly, but she managed to deflect most of the blame for this debacle onto Dumbledore, saying that as both the Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot and the Headmaster of Hogwarts, she'd believed him to be the greatest living authority on any laws regarding magical education and hadn't even considered it possible that he could make such a monumental error. She finished her spiel with a promise to begin working on having this mistake rectified the very next day… saying to herself 'That I will! There's no way I'm going to let that old fool drag me down with him! The lying old bastard assured me that no-one knew about that nearly thousand year old law… In fact I think I better start going through everything else I've supported him on to and make some 'discoveries' of other things that he compelled me to go along with….'

That was too good an opportunity to pass up so the adults in their groups started having 'discussions' close enough for the reporters to 'overhear'. Pandora Lovegood and Celeste Greengrass were bright enough to have been classed as peers of the brilliant Lily Potter, so when they started speculating about Hermione's point that Dumbledore had most probably done this in order to gain control of the new Lords and Ladies before they left Hogwarts, that speculation was guaranteed to be in the news-sheets, though most followed the Quibbler and Daily Prophet's example and delayed it a day or two so that proper coverage was given to the Boy-Who-Lived being presented with Orders of Merlin, First Class, for himself and both his parents six years to the day after that fateful night.

The sheeple of course decried the speculation as malicious lies against a great man, but even they couldn't come up with any valid argument for him, as both the Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot and the Headmaster of Hogwarts, being ignorant of one of the clearest and most important Druids' Laws relating to magical education. To everyone else, it was just another nail in the coffin of the _Great_ Albus Dumbledore.

* * *

What most there never found out was that Harry's Goblin Guards had stopped three Wizards' and two Witches' assassination attempts at the awards ceremony. The Goblins used the quick and expedient method of lopping off the hand or arm that was pointed at Harry as they tried to cast a curse at him, then popping them and the detached parts off to the DMLE holding cells that were waiting. One more Noble and Minor House were eradicated in Magical Britain, with everything they owned being forfeited to the House of Potter and heavy fines of titles, holdings, assets and money were levied on the other three Houses, while all of the Witches and Wizards went through the Veil of Death because they had tried to kill the head of two Most Noble and Most Ancient and five more Noble and Most Ancient Houses. Bagnold managed to keep her magic though, because none of them had been Death Eaters, just Pureblood bigots who believed that Harry was endangering their way of life and were determined to stop him.

* * *

There _was_ a scene at the awards ceremony that soured things for Harry, Hermione and Luna though, because the Potions Queen was there with Arthur and she rushed up to try and claim a connection with Harry (probably under orders from Dumbledore, they realised later). She started screeching like a fishwife when the Goblin Guards blocked her from getting close to Harry, but quickly shut her mouth when a very grim Madam Bones advanced on her and demanded to know what she thought she was doing.

While Auntie Ami was dealing with Molly, Harry, Hermione and Luna were looking at Arthur and remembering Molly's gloating comments about him and his sons as they died. Arthur had his normal pleasant expression on his face, but he was more vacant than they remembered him, and when they pointed this out to their elders their reaction was more extreme, because this Arthur Weasley was nothing but a shadow of the man they'd known eight years ago. When Harry reminded them that he was in the Potions Queen's clutches and Hermione pointed out that Molly had boasted about potioning him at Hogwarts, they turned grim and Celeste quickly knelt down and whispered something to Susan, then sent her off to Amelia. The others smiled at Celeste when they worked out what she'd done, because women who pretend to be wonderful mothers like Molly Weasley couldn't afford to react to Amelia's Seven year old niece coming up to ask her something in the middle of an argument, so was the perfect way to pass on the message to have a good look at Arthur while she was that close.

Amelia was the best one to do this, because as Pandora explained to the kids, Auntie Ami had actually been Arthur's girlfriend and their families were in the middle of negotiations for a betrothal contract when the Potions Queen got pregnant with Bill and Arthur had to marry her. No-one had ever replaced Arthur for Amelia, so she would be able to get a read on him better than anyone else.

When the Weasleys had disappeared, the others looked at Amelia and she shook her head with a tear in her eye. "That's not the Arthur Weasley I knew, my Arthur was a brilliant wizard, full of fire and life… but that one…. That one's dead inside..."

Hermione and Luna stepped forward at that and proposed a plan to get Arthur into a facility where they could get a start on fixing what the Potions Queen had done to him that was brilliant in its simplicity. Amelia knelt down to hug them for that, but while it was obvious that something was going on in their little group, enough people knew about Amelia's history with Arthur that her getting emotional after a confrontation with the witch who took him away from her was just put down to Molly Weasley vindictively rubbing Amelia's nose in the fact that she'd lost Arthur to her at the beginning of the war and lost everyone in her family but her infant niece by the end. That was why no-one turned a hair when they all left soon after.

* * *

A few days later, an enchanted Muggle artefact that had been sent to Arthur to be examined (he was in charge of the two man Misuse of Muggle Artefacts office) exploded and he was sent to St Mungo's to be treated. They found everything they expected and more, much more…. So much in fact that they couldn't correct everything at St Mungo's so Amelia made the call as his boss to have him transferred to another Healing Facility to be treated. The staff at St Mungo's remembered the last time Madam Bones had been involved in patients being transferred to another Healing Facility and didn't say a word, they just went along with creating a simulacrum of Arthur that was supposedly being isolated because he was presenting the symptoms of a particularly virulent strain of Dragonpox in case this had been a deliberate attack on Baron Weasley and his attacker decided to try again.

It took a week of intensive mind healer and re-constructive therapy to heal what had been done to Arthur, and in that time they used the Dragonpox story to bring Molly and all the Weasley children in to St Mungo's for testing as well. What they found was disturbing because all of them except for Molly and the youngest boy, Ronald, had been subjected to potions and compulsion and memory charms to alter their behaviour and Percival, Ronald and Ginevra weren't Arthur's children. They used the Dragonpox story to hold the children at St Mungo's while they flushed the potions from their systems and removed all the compulsions and other charms that had been placed on them and prepared the case against Molly. They induced the same symptoms in Molly to hold her there, to ensure that she didn't destroy any evidence or do a runner before her day in court.

They were also digging up plenty of evidence against Molly's Great-Aunt Muriel Prewett (nee Flint), Cornelius Fudge and Dumbledore as well, but unfortunately Dumbledore couldn't be prosecuted for anything he did up until he ceased being the Chief Warlock…. Though some of the more politicly savvy members of the family were pointing out that while they couldn't prosecute him like they could the others, they should still be able to levy significant penalties on him because Molly had been acting under his orders when she conceived Percival and Ronald, and his magical signature was present in the illegal compulsion and memory charms that had been cast over Arthur and the children.

What was going to happen to the children was another problem, Arthur would have no trouble getting custody of Bilius, Charlus, Fredericus and Georgius because they were his children, but Percival and Ginevra were the late Bartemius Crouch Senior's children and Ronald was Cornelius Fudge's son. They confirmed that Percival was sincere and honest when he apologised for his behaviour when he was under the potions and compulsions and when he told Arthur that whoever his blood father was, _he_ would always be the one he thought of as his father. Ginevra was just as bright as Percival and Arthur's sons and she loved Arthur and most of her brothers. She told Arthur pretty much the same thing as Percival had and they confirmed that she was being sincere too, so Arthur would be doing everything he could to get custody of Percy and Ginny as well….

Harry, Hermione and Luna were of two minds about this at first, but Luna's memories showed that Ginny had been a good friend to her up until her mother died when she was nine, so it was quite probable that Molly and Dumbledore had stepped up the compulsions and other behaviour modifications then, and Harry and Hermione's memories showed that Percy had come good in the end, probably after the compulsions and everything else wore off, and his suspicion of Dumbledore and Harry was no doubt related to snippets of memories coming back about what Dumbledore had been doing to him most of his life. They agreed to give Percy and Ginny a chance, but would not be letting them in on any big secrets until they'd proven themselves, having seen the memories of their deaths, no-one argued with that.

While they were relatively comfortable with the rest of the family though, Ronald was a problem. Some of the family argued that he was only seven and would grow up, but Harry and the others countered with the fact that he was the only one of the Weasley children who hadn't needed to be compelled in any way to behave like this, and his own memories had shown that Molly had made no effort to make him like this (IE: Lazy, greedy, self righteous, judgemental, prone to leap into rages and tantrums about everything, jealous of what everyone else had but convinced that it was his right to have anything he wanted without doing anything for it, absolutely disgusting manners… pretty much your stereotypical Pureblood bigot except for the fact that most of them could be trained to at least pretend to have better manners) either, in fact she'd put all of her efforts into turning the others into what she wanted them to be because his nature already fitted what she wanted from him. Then there was the fact that Harry, Hermione and Luna's memories showed that the only changes in his behaviour in later years was him growing steadily worse until he was effectively a cross between the worst of Draco Malfoy and Greg Goyle…. And the fact that from his half-siblings' memories he'd been like this from birth, just getting worse all the time, and he disgusted all of them.

* * *

Ron's blood father was alive, and in fact he'd been doing Dumbledore's bidding since Ron was born…. Including ensuring that no-one had a chance to check the so-called 'evidence' against Sirius Black. The deal Dumbledore had made with Fudge was that they'd have Arthur Weasley pay for the boy's upbringing and education, and then after he'd finished at Hogwarts, it would be 'discovered' that Ronald was in fact the result of what appeared to be a drunken indiscretion by Cornelius and Molly Weasley, one that both of them had been either too drunk or compelled not to remember, so he could claim Ronald as his son and heir because Fudge's wife was barren but nearly all the money they had at that point had come from her family and he couldn't afford to get rid of her because he didn't have the money to repay her dowry.

Dumbledore's plan for Percy was to use the baby to blackmail Bartemius Crouch Senior into being more cooperative, threatening that if he didn't play along with Dumbledore's plans he'd expose the fact that he had a child by another witch. Crouch's wife was a sickly woman and the shame and shock of such a scandal could quite possibly kill her, but more to the point, Crouch loved his wife dearly and Dumbledore was certain that he'd do anything he was told to ensure that she never discovered that he'd been unfaithful. He'd underestimated Crouch though, because Barty Crouch had a keen mind and an iron will. Crouch had himself tested for residual potions and then took the proof of what he'd been potioned with around the time that Percy was conceived to his wife to help explain what had happened and what Albus Dumbledore was threatening. Mrs Crouch was upset about him having a son by another witch of course, but she accepted that it had not been done of his own free will and agreed to let him handle the matter his way, so he'd used that evidence to turn the tables on Dumbledore and force _him_ to support his proposals like the Aurors' authorisation to use lethal force.

Ginny on the other hand was the result of a delusional Molly Weasley's belief that Barty would turn to her when his ever more sickly wife finally died if she could give him more children. Barty turned her on because he was rich, ruthless, ambitious and powerful, everything Arthur Weasley wasn't, so she potioned him again at the Yule celebrations in 1980 to conceive her only daughter. When she approached Barty after his wife died however, he rejected her violently because he viewed her as nothing more than what she was, Dumbledore's Whore. Quite aside from the fact that he was hiding his supposedly dead Death Eater son in his home, any married witch who would eagerly have sex with other wizards, and do so with any random wizards she was ordered to, disgusted him, all the more so when she was _intentionally_ getting pregnant to other wizards for the purpose of blackmailing them at the orders of someone other than her husband.

* * *

Molly Weasley was bright enough be suspicious when she was suddenly cured of the Dragonpox symptoms she'd been suffering for the past week or so and told to make herself presentable, then MLE Officers arrived to escort her somewhere…. However she was still caught out when she was led into the Wizengamot chamber and saw Arthur occupying the Weasley seat on the top tier of the Wizengamot benches, looking every inch the Head of a Noble and Most Ancient House. She panicked when she saw Albus, Great-Aunt Muriel and Cornelius Fudge secured to the witness bench and tried to run, but was stunned before she got two steps and then unceremoniously levitated down to be chained into the chair in front of the Chief Warlock and Chief Witch's bench.

When she was revived, the faces she was looking up didn't look at all pleased with her and the Chief Witch ordered the Clerk of the Court to begin the session. "We hereby commence the trial of Molly Ursula Weasley, nee Prewett, Wife of Baron Arthurus Septimus Weasley, Head of the Noble and Most Ancient House of Weasley and Regent for the Noble and Ancient House of Prewett. Molly Weasley is charged with adultery, bearing the children known as Percival Ignatius Weasley and Ginevra Molly Weasley to Bartemius Crouch Senior and Ronald Bilius Weasley to Baronet Cornelius Fudge while married to Baron Weasley and fraudulently attempting to have those children accepted as Baron Weasley's children. Theft from the Noble and Most Ancient House of Weasley for the upbringing and education of the children born of adulterous affairs with Bartemius Crouch and Cornelius Fudge. Line Theft from the Noble and Most Ancient House of Weasley and damage to the reputation and standing of the Noble and Most Ancient House of Bones through the use of love and lust potions to cause the then Heir to the House of Weasley, Laird Arthurus Weasley, to impregnate and marry her, forcing the House of Weasley to break off betrothal negotiations in process with the House of Bones for Laird Arthurus Weasley and Amelia Susan Bones, Daughter of the House of Bones. Potions poisoning and illegal use of compulsion and memory charms to hold Baron Weasley in thrall from February Nineteen Seventy to when his treatment was commenced eleven days ago. Potions poisoning and illegal use of compulsion and memory charms on Laird Bilius Arthurus Weasley, Heir to the Noble and Most Ancient House of Weasley over a period from Nineteen Seventy Six to when his treatment was commenced ten days ago in order to prevent him from exposing Molly Weasley's crimes and force him to obey her commands. Potions poisoning and illegal use of compulsion and memory charms on Baron Charlus Prewett Weasley, Head of the Noble and Ancient House of Prewett over a period from Nineteen Seventy Seven to when his treatment was commenced ten days ago in order to prevent him from exposing Molly Weasley's crimes and force him to obey her commands. Potions poisoning and illegal use of compulsion and memory charms on Percival Ignatius Weasley over a period from Nineteen Eighty to when his treatment was commenced ten days ago in order to prevent him from exposing Molly Weasley's crimes and force him to obey her commands. Potions poisoning and illegal use of compulsion and memory charms on Laird Fredericius Prewett Weasley, Heir to the Noble and Ancient House of Prewett, and Georgius Prewett Weasley over a period from Nineteen Eighty Two to when their treatment was commenced ten days ago in order to prevent them from exposing Molly Weasley's crimes and force them to obey her commands…. And potions poisoning and illegal use of compulsion and memory charms on Ginevra Molly Weasley over a period from Nineteen Eighty Four to when her treatment was commenced ten days ago in order to prevent her from exposing Molly Weasley's crimes and force her to obey her commands. These are the items that that Molly Ursula Weasley nee Prewett has been charged with and the purpose of this hearing presided over by Chief Witch Countess Griselda Marchbanks and Chief Warlock Earl Tiberius Ogden. Mister Rufus Scrimgeour, Head or the Auror Office, is representing the Ministry of Magic in this hearing and Mister Elphias Doge Esquire is representing the defendants."

(Amelia couldn't prosecute this case because of the obvious conflict of interest whereby this harlot had stolen her boyfriend and all but betrothed.)

The Chief Warlock looked at Molly. "Does the defendant understand the charges that they will be facing today?"

"What? _No!_ They're all lies! Arthur and Charlie are no Barons and Bill and Fred are no Lairds!"

Tiberius looked at her as if she was something he just stepped in and turned to ask Baron Weasley if, in the interest of putting all such claims to rest, he would be willing to use the Stone to identify himself, and asked someone to fetch the Weasley children from the witness room for the same purpose. Arthur ignored his wife as he proceeded to the Stone, but waited for the kids to get there before he placed his hands on the Stone. Griselda had Molly and the other witnesses silenced and disillusioned before the kids entered the chamber to prevent any attempts to play on their emotions.

Arthur, Charlie, Bill and Fred all identified themselves with the Stone and when Ginny said that she wished she could do that Arthur looked up at the Chief Witch and Chief Warlock in a plea to allow it. Griselda nodded with a smile and waved Ginny forward. That was when they found out something new about the Stone, because as she stepped forward it sank down to a height to suit her. When she put her hands on the stone its voice rang out. **"Ginevra Molly Weasley, Daughter of the Noble and Most Ancient House of Weasley."** No-one with children could help smiling fondly as she clapped her hands with glee and skipped back to the Witness room holding Bill's hand after that.

The fond smile on Tiberius' face disappeared the moment the door closed behind the children and he motioned for the Officers of the Court to cancel the silencing and disillusionment charms. "As you have seen, the Barons and Lairds Weasley do indeed hold those titles, does the defendant wish to retract her other comments or shall we proceed with the trial?"

Molly just stared at him, doing a fish impersonation, so he turned to Rufus. "Very well, please proceed Mister Scrimgeour."

* * *

Most of the people in the chamber were disgusted by what they heard over the next few hours, and they silenced and hid the defendants whenever the children were brought into the chamber to bear witness. Tiberius reminded Elphias not to try to pressure any of the children into altering their testimony to make the defendants look better, but this was merely the standard reminder that Rufus got as well as he knew that whatever error of judgement he may have made in being Dumbledore's friend, Elphias was a good man and wouldn't harangue children to get his way.

When it was all said and done, Molly No-Name (as Arthur and Charlie had cast her out of both the Houses of Weasley and Prewett) was sentenced to what was effectively life in Azkaban, as no-one expected her to survive a twenty one year sentence there. Her Great-Aunt Muriel was also a No-Name now, as Charlie cast her out of the House of Prewett and the House of Flint had already been eradicated. She was sentenced to a year in Azkaban and just about everything she owned had been forfeited to the Houses of Weasley and Bones for her part in the initial potioning of Arthur Weasley to force Arthur to marry Molly and break up the on-going betrothal agreements between the Houses of Weasley and Bones, and in covering up the other adulterous affairs and on-going potioning of Arthur and the children.

There was no question who the revived Houses of Prewett and Weasley were now aligned with though, because Duke Black and Lord Longbottom both stood to request that the court determine what penalties would have been levied against the House of Crouch, pledging to pay that to the House of Weasley from what had been forfeited from the House of Crouch to the Houses of Black and Longbottom. Arthur nodded to them in thanks. "The House of Weasley is humbled by your generosity Great Uncle Arcturus and Cousin Frank."

No-one in the chamber had ever seen Arthur Weasley show the like of the evil smile he sent Muriel No-Name's way when he _magnanimously_ gave her the Weasleys' eclectic home known as the Burrow in exchange for her palatial estate, though it _was_ matched by the Chief Witch when she formally declared the value of the Burrow more than sufficient to cover the residual value of Muriel No-Name's estate after the penalties had been levied and praised Arthur for making such a generous and kind gesture. The brighter Witches and Wizards in the chamber recognised that the restored Baron Weasley was a very different kettle of fish to the bumbling fool everyone had been having so much fun ridiculing while his ex-wife was keeping him potioned up to the eyeballs…. And were determined _not_ to have any part in crossing the powerful wizard they saw before them who was looking rather aggrieved about the memories he now had of the last sixteen years.

Dumbledore lost a good portion of his remaining ill-gotten gains to the House of Weasley for his part in Molly's activities and Fudge lost his Baronet and a third of what the House of Fudge owned (a suspiciously large amount for someone from an ordinary family on a Ministry salary) to the House of Weasley. He was also forced to officially claim his son Ronald, who had been formally cast out of both the Weasley and Prewett families because he was adamant that he didn't want to be with them any more, he wanted to be with his real Daddy.

 **A/N: The reason the Druids' Alliance had so many votes when the Wizengamot was created was that the four Dukes were each worth twenty one votes (five for Duke plus one for the Laird and one for the Druid Family Head times three), five of the seven Most Ancient Earls were worth fifteen (three plus one plus one times three), and the two Ancient Earls ten (five times two), the two Most Ancient Barons were each worth twelve votes (two plus one plus one times three), the eight Heads of the Most Ancient Druid Houses were each worth six votes (one for Laird and one for Druid Family Head times three) and the six Ancient Druid Houses four each, but six other Most Ancient Druid Houses and two Ancient Druid Houses had been merged into the extant Druid Houses by then, so that was another forty four votes. This increased over time as the Heads of Noble Houses tried to claim what the Most Ancient Houses had by right of conquest, but the children of the Druid Houses were generally more powerful so they usually defeated their challengers and claimed everything _they_ had by right of conquest, as Harry did to the House of Flint in the Wizengamot. There _was_ a decline in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries as Druid Houses, like the other Houses, were becoming extinct for various reasons.**


	6. Yo Ho Ho and a Bottle of Rum

******This chapter covers the ten months from just after Halloween to just before they start at Hogwarts and introduces many elements that will be used down the track. Overall this story will be shorter because the timeframes are being compressed to compensate for the massive changes Harry, Hermione and Luna made when they first arrived in this timeline.******

 ** ** **Usual disclaimers, no rights to existing characters, this is not JKR's HP, the real world or a Disney Princess story and there will probably be a few changes in the first hour or so after it's posted because things invariably look different in the published version and I don't always like the way it came out******

After Molly and Muriel No-Name headed off to Azkaban, the renamed Ronald Cornelius Fudge went to live with his father and Ginny's name had been changed to Ginevra Prewett Weasley to remove the stigma of the foul hag who'd borne her, the Weasleys and the rest of the family started living.

As she'd promised herself, Minister Bagnold had repealed Dumbledore's law that restricted magical children to not starting their magical education until after they had turned eleven, along with the associated law which stipulated that they could only start in First Year and prevented moving ahead on the basis of ability, within days of Halloween, and was putting up the other laws she'd supported Dumbledore introducing that could come back and bite her in the arse up to be repealed as fast as she could put the documents together. She knew that anyone with half a brain would see through the flimsy justifications she presented for this, but that was intentional, she _wanted_ the Druids' Alliance to see that she was cleaning house and separating herself from Dumbledore… Because she could see that Dumbledore was going down and she wasn't prepared to let him take her down with him.

This business had set her own plans back years, but while she could live with that, losing everything she'd been working towards since she left Hogwarts was unacceptable. The remaining schemes she had in play were her last hope of regaining control of the Ministry and therefore Magical Britain. It would be an absolute disaster if people like the Druids' Alliance caught onto what she was planning but all she could do was try and ensure that they were kept quiet enough to prevent the damned Druids' Alliance or anyone else catching wind of them.

* * *

Another aspect of this was that she had been forced to agree to more changes in the Ministry. Fudge had forfeited his position as Director of the Department of Magical Accidents and Catastrophes to Arthur Weasley as one of the one of the major assets allocated to Arthur. Arthur and the Druids' Alliance had used the situation to get the Wizengamot to rule on the spot that the majority of the functions of the department were directly related to the DMLE and therefore it needed to be under the control of the DMLE.

Striking while the iron was hot, they also managed to have all the Muggle Liaison functions in Magical Accidents moved to the Department of International Magical Cooperation (which had been under Marcus Greengrass' control ever since they took Crouch down and when Amelia imposed the oaths on the DMLE personnel he did the same thing with everyone in Magical Cooperation), along with the Goblin Liaison Offices, and got a Wizengamot ruling to have the department renamed to the Department of International Cooperation. Bagnold only put it together after the fact that they'd not only combined _all_ of the Ministry's important liaison functions into one department, this move had also officially elevated both the Muggles and Goblins to the status of peer nations.

In the midst of this, they also managed to get the Werewolf Register and Werewolf Capture unit moved to the DMLE before anyone could put up any resistance, effectively reclassifying transformed werewolves as dangerous criminals rather than beasts and preventing harassment of Werewolves while they were trying to go about their lives as citizens of Magical Britain. They'd also used the evidence obtained under Veritaserum of illegal tampering the Floo Network and Portkeys to support the Death Eaters in the Wizarding War to have the Department of Magical Transportation made a part of the DMLE as well. This meant that everyone working in Magical Transportation was now subject to the same oaths and controls as the rest of the DMLE, and that had been enough to get the vote passed by the Wizengamot.

What frightened Bagnold the most was the fact that in the space of a few months, she'd effectively lost control of the Ministry to the Druids' Alliance. The Department of Magical Law Enforcement and Department of International Cooperation now controlled well over half of the staff and nearly all of the important functions of the Ministry between them. What this meant was that she was head of the Ministry in name only because Bones and Greengrass had all the important functions in their departments and they were forcing her to operate in strict accordance with the _official_ Ministry rules and regulations. This in turn was leading her supporters to ask why they should give her any more gold when she no longer had the power to do what they paid her to do and this made Bagnold furious, all the more so because no-one had _ever_ outmanoeuvred her like this before and she _didn't_ like losing!

Bagnold had also been forced to show her hand by hastily promoting Delores Umbridge out of the Improper Use of Magic Office to become her Undersecretary before she could be forced to take the oath that everyone in the DMLE had to take. She wasn't at all happy about that, but Umbridge's self preservation instincts and rat cunning would have had her giving up everything she knew in a flash if she was questioned and neither Bagnold or her supporters could afford having that stupid witch telling the DMLE what she knew about them.

* * *

With Dumbledore's laws gone, the children were being prepared to go to Hogwarts the next year, and the ones already at Hogwarts were being brought to the Potter Estate for extra lessons to fill in the holes in their magical and non-magical education.

They also reshuffled the betrothal contracts in their extended family. Harry hadn't been at all comfortable with the fact that it was possible for events outside their control to force some of their betrothals to become marriages, because while Hermione was less than ten months older and Luna was only one and a half months younger than his real age of Twenty One, Daphne was nearly fourteen years younger, and Astoria was over fifteen years younger.

Minerva had formally made George Weasley Heir to the Noble and Most Ancient House of Ross and its Associated Houses to ensure that her line didn't die with her, which made it possible to cancel the betrothal contracts between Harry and the Greengrass sisters and create new betrothal contracts between Daphne, Astoria and George. They then created new male and female line betrothal contracts between Harry, Nymphadora Tonks and Hestia Jones. Dora was heir to her mother's title and the House of Tonks, and Griselda Marchbanks had made Hestia Heiress to the Noble and Most Ancient House of Marchbanks and its Associated Houses because like Minerva she had no heir to carry on her line.

Dora and Hestia both knew the truth about Harry, Hermione and Luna and they were intelligent and powerful Fourteen and Fifteen year old witches who were mature beyond their years due to the events that they'd had to live through. Dora's parents were the supposedly disgraced daughter of a Dark Pureblood House and a Muggleborn, and she was having to deal with wizards' sick preconceptions and fantasies about metamophmagus witches to boot. Hestia had become Emmeline's ward after her parents were murdered by Death Eaters in the frenzies of rape, torture and murder that marked the closing phases of the war. Hestia's father had been Emmeline's Auror partner and Emmeline was a close friend of both her parents, so they had formally made her Hestia's Guardian in their wills.

Sirius of course couldn't resist pointing out that Harry was now betrothed to his cousin (even though he and Dora were far more removed than Sirius' parents had been) and his foster sister, as Emmeline was both his and Hestia's Guardian, but Emmeline and the others boxed him around the ears and made him shut up.

After Crouch was pushed out of the DMLE and the Druids' Alliance ensured that Amelia became its new Director, Amelia had promoted Emmeline into Alice Longbottom's empty position in the Auror Office's Department of Investigations to reduce the likelihood of Hestia losing her too. The only reason she hadn't been promoted before that was Crouch's prejudice against anyone who didn't agree with everything he said, so Amelia's conscience was clear in giving her the role. The so-called Pureblood elite tried to argue that Emmeline was just getting preferential treatment because she and Hestia were sharing Bones Manor with Amelia and Susan, but Emmeline's record spoke for itself so Amelia just laid it out and challenged anyone to show a valid reason why Emmeline didn't deserve to get the role, and struck back at all the ones making those accusations who had used their family's influence to get their people into roles that they _didn't_ deserve.

* * *

While the children and adults of the family were being prepared for what was to come, they were also reclaiming the heritage of the Houses of Black and Potter, touring their estates and businesses around the world to establish the fact that they had returned and were taking control of their destinies…. And the world's two most infamous magical pirate fleets provided the vehicles to do that.

While traditional piracy had largely been finished for the last hundred years, the House of Potter's pirate fleet had been the scourge of the East Indies for centuries, and the House of Black's fleet controlled the West Indies. In fact these pirate fleets had played a significant role in the Houses of Potter and Black becoming two of the wealthiest and most powerful houses in the Magical World, and thanks to powerful stasis charms the ships were still quite viable, even though most of them had originally been built in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries.

The Potter fleet was made up of the Bran, a two hundred and twenty odd foot clipper that had been converted to a three masted Gaff rigged Bermuda Sloop in the Nineteenth Century, the Dracu which was a hundred and fifty odd foot three masted Gaff rigged Bermuda Sloop, the Flying Dutchman, which had originally been built as a hundred and ten foot Brigantine but was converted to a two masted Gaff rigged Bermuda Sloop in the Nineteenth Century, the Griffin and Thestral, hundred and five and seventy foot Lambas that had been converted to two masted Gaff rigged Bermuda Sloops, and the Garuda, a sixty five foot single masted Bermuda Sloop. All of their ships had Acromantula silk sails and lines and were faster than most contemporary ships, magically expanded inside to several times the size of the ships themselves, that could fly high enough to use the speed of the jetstreams, travel underwater, be made invisible or glamoured into other ships and were magically armed and armoured. They had mostly been based on the Potters' Island of Krakatoa up until it exploded in 1883, but now they were based under Bran Holm on the Potter Estate.

The Black fleet was much the same as the Potter fleet. The Raven was a two hundred and ten foot clipper that was converted to a three masted Gaff rigged Bermuda Sloop in the Nineteenth Century, the Tebo was a hundred and thirty odd foot three masted Gaff rigged Bermuda Sloop, the Marie Celeste like the Flying Dutchman had originally been built as a hundred and five foot Brigantine but was converted to a two masted Gaff rigged Bermuda Sloop in the Nineteenth Century, the Crup, a hundred foot two masted Bermuda Sloop and the Doxy and Pixie, sixty odd foot single masted Bermuda Sloops. These all shared the Acromantula silk sails and lines and other attributes of the Potter ships, as the houses of Potter and Black had been quite close up until the Eighteen Century.

What this meant was that between these two infamous pirate fleets, the family had a dozen magical ships that could be sailed or flown to just about any of their estates around the world and Goblin Floos on the ships could be used as portals to allow the family to pop to and from their locations around the world easily. As far as anyone else in Magical Britain knew, they were staying hidden behind the wards of their estates there while in fact they were roaming the world reclaiming their heritage and working to change the Wizarding World's perception of other magical people and non-magicals.

* * *

One of Hermione and Luna's top priorities was something that they'd been trying to work on before they came back, but were having little luck with then because of the Pureblood bigots in power, as it was dangerous to try and look into anything that went against what the bigots believed in, and werewolf hunting was one of their favourite sports. Hermione and Luna had heard stories about a valley up in the mountains of Romania where werewolves and vampires were supposedly turning human again. Those stories said that a powerful magical family had lived there for centuries, and they had stumbled upon a way to cure lycanthropy and vampirism. The entire region was plagued with werewolves and vampires though and the ones running the packs and covens there were reportedly determined that this secret never got out, so nearly everyone who tried to investigate the stories had either been wiped out or turned and forced to join the packs and covens.

The thing was, they had Remus and a number of other witches and wizards who had been infected with lycanthropy or vampirism attached to their group. They would obviously have a better chance of getting through the werewolves and vampires to the valley in question than normal humans, and even the slightest chance of being freed from their afflictions was enough for them to volunteer to make the effort. Ultimately that chance paid off, over a third of them were killed before they made it to the valley, but Remus made it through with over half of the others and the family had shared the secret with them.

Remus couldn't believe his ears when they told him what the cure for his and the others' afflictions was….. the solution to these blights that had plagued their world for millennia couldn't possibly be that simple, if it were _surely_ someone would have uncovered it before this…. but they demonstrated it on him and the others and proved that it did indeed work. It came down to what had prompted James and Sirius to learn to become Animagi when they were at Hogwarts, the fact that they couldn't be infected with lycanthropy while they were in their animal forms. Apparently the lycanthrope and vampire viruses could only survive in a _human_ body, so changing the infected human into an animal immediately wiped out the viruses, and when they were returned to their human forms the viruses were gone. Apparently the reason that the viruses weren't effected by their werewolf or vampire transformations was that werewolf and vampire transformations were like metamophmagus transformations, they remained human while their forms changed, while in animagus transformations they actually became the animals of their animal forms, and the same thing applied to human to animal transformations. A side benefit of this cure was that the increased speed, strength, stamina and healing capabilities that their bodies developed as werewolves and the associated increase in magical strength remained with them, as did the vampires' speed and stealth advantages.

Remus tried to get the family to come with them when they left, but they were too hidebound and set in their ways to leave. They were adamant that the valley had been their family's home for over half a millennium and they were not going to let the werewolves and vampires drive them out. Eventually Remus gave up and he and the rest of their party portkeyed back to the Doxy, which was sitting in lake just beyond the foothills of the mountains.

As soon as they had all been officially tested and certified clear of the lycanthrope and vampire viruses, the family started hiring witches and wizards who could perform human to animal transformations to be sent out with ex-werewolf and ex-vampire guards to remove these blights from Britain, and swell their numbers in the process. As _they_ had no prejudices against the biggest pools of witches and wizards who had the power to do this, the Muggleborns and Half-bloods, it didn't take long to start curing werewolves and vampires across Magical Britain and getting them removed from the werewolf and vampire registries. They were also working on curing the afflictions elsewhere in the Magical World, but as the Houses of Potter and Black held less power outside Britain, it was talking longer to get things moving there.

Once they had been cleared of their afflictions though, another problem presented itself, how to make up for the years and opportunities that these poor unfortunates had lost while they were afflicted. That was why a new culture began to arise to fill the void that existed between Magical Britain and Muggle Britain that they called Demi-Britain. Of course, most of those in Magical Britain who knew about Demi-Britain called the people it was made up of dregs, mongrels and vermin, but those rare few capable of reason who checked the facts were getting worried, because they could see that Magical Britain was losing its best and brightest to this Demi-Britain that was growing to bridge the gap between the Magical and Non-Magical worlds.

Those who kept their eyes open and their mouths shut watched as the Muggleborn and Half-Blood witches and wizards who had been the top of their years at Hogwarts quit the mediocre at best jobs they'd been forced to accept as all they could get in Magical Britain in droves and went off to work for the Houses of Potter and Black. Hogwarts, the DMLE, Department of International Cooperation and St Mungo's were the only places that weren't losing the majority of their best people because unlike the rest of Magical Britain, they had already begun hiring, firing and promoting witches and wizards on the basis of ability rather than blood status.

At the start, the majority of the jobs created in Demi-Britain were related to teaching or fighting. Squibs, Muggleborns and the others who were being forced out of the Magical world needed non-magical education to make a place for themselves in the Muggle world and ex-werewolves, ex-vampires and others who had received inadequate magical education were in dire need of proper magical education. At the same time, they were getting ready to fight for their survival and a place in the world so everyone was being trained in both magical and non-magical combat. Most of them were doing other work for the family's businesses but they were being brought up to date on living in both worlds.

* * *

Bagnold's plans started coming out halfway through Nineteen Eighty Eight, and the adults had to remind themselves that Harry, Hermione and Luna only _appeared_ to be children when Harry and the girls started turning the air blue. It took a while for Harry and the girls to calm down enough to explain and when they did, what they heard sent a chill through the others.

It appeared that what they were seeing was further evidence to support Hermione's Time Travel Constant theory, because pushing changes through that had taken years in the timeline they came back from in a matter of weeks had apparently triggered major events of that timeline being pushed forward by several years.

Harry pointed to the Daily Prophet headline that proclaimed that Magical Britain would be hosting the finals of the Nineteen Eighty Eight Quidditch World Cup and scowled. "If that's between Bulgaria and Ireland, we're screwed, because that's the precursor for the return of the Triwizard Tournament after it was banned for nearly two hundred years. In the other timeline it was hosted at Hogwarts in Nineteen Ninety Four and used to bring back Riddle…. It looks like all this has been brought forward by six bloody years!"

When the family looked into it, they found that Bulgaria and Ireland were indeed most likely to be the two teams who would be in the World Cup play off. Further investigation into what Harry, Hermione and Luna were telling them answered the quandary of how they would work around the fact that the Department of International Cooperation was now out of the Minister's control, because what had been a minor office for the Department of Foreign Affairs and Sports in the other timeline was seriously expanded when Bagnold moved all of her key people out of the Department of International Cooperation before Marcus took it over. She'd given them full authority to negotiate with other Magical governments for anything to do with sporting events to get around the Department of International Cooperation and the ICW…. Which made it quite likely that Harry was correct about what else was coming their way.

* * *

Harry was hopeful when none of them could find out anything about the Triwizard Cup from their contacts in the ICW or Beauxbatons, but they booked a few boxes beside the Ministry box in the World Cup stadium and made sure that they'd be ready if events panned out the same way again. Some of the preparations were being made for when they started at Hogwarts in September, and they'd been getting used to them while they toured the Potter and Black estates through the year.

They all accepted that getting rid of most of the Death Eaters hadn't been enough to make their world safe, especially for Harry, Hermione and Luna who their salvation depended on. The fact that they would be heading into a potentially hostile environment where Dumbledore and other potential enemies were still on the staff, not to mention the Death Eaters' and other Pureblood bigots' children in the student body come September, meant that they were taking every precaution they could.

To this end, they were doing the Goblin Warrior training morning, noon and night, as well as Wizard Magical combat training and general Wizarding, Goblin and Elf magic, magical, mundane and Goblin history and culture and general non-magical education. They had used the Goblins' runes based equivalents of time turners to stretch the twelve months up to when they started at Hogwarts out to three years, which gave Neville, Sue, Daphne, Astoria, Fred, George and Ginny the development they needed to be ready to start at Hogwarts. Bill, Charlie, Hestia, Dora, and Percy were also using the Goblin time chambers to fit extra training in, but they only fitted in an extra eight months or so. Even using the time chambers, they were on the go from early in the morning to late at night but with the head start they had, Harry, Hermione and Luna had covered several years of training across all three cultures, and physically they were the equivalents of well developed twelve or thirteen year olds.

Another significant factor in their protection was the Potter Familiars. Only a few Bennu had ever been heard of in the history of the Magical World, and the most common understanding of the Bennu was that they were the mothers of the Phoenix. The Head of the House of Potter's Bennu Familiar, who had been bonded to the House of Potter for over eight hundred years since Hardwin Potter encountered her in Egypt while he was studying the ancient magics of the old kingdom, changed her name and appearance each time she was reborn, her current name was Hedwig and her physical form was that of a Great Egret with the Eastern Reef Egret's short yellow legs. Like other Bennu, Hedwig could speak all languages and shared all the Phoenix's capabilities, though she disappeared and reappeared with a flash of light rather than a ball of flame when she apparated and she could transform into something like a protobird with wing claws which was similar to a transformed Veela's size and form and could spit fireballs hotter than a Swedish Short Snout's fire. With the wisdom of the ages, Hedwig played a major role in their education.

While the Potter pirate fleet was based in the East Indies, their magical pirate ships had pillaged the treasures of Asia and Africa for centuries, and in the course of that they discovered some extraordinary magical creatures which became Potter Familiars, primary among them being the Mngwa. Like their cousins the Nundu, the Mngwas were from Africa. The first ones were brought back by Harry's ancestors who were plundering the treasures of Africa in late Eighteenth and early Nineteenth Centuries and more had been brought back to refresh the blood lines over the ensuing two hundred years. The Mngwas were formally classified as XXXXX creatures, because according to the 'experts', they were ferocious donkey sized brindled leopard like cats that were impossible to tame, often wiped out entire villages and required scores of witches and wizards to bring them down. What most of the Wizarding world had never known, and wasn't likely to find out, though was that the massive and ferocious Mngwa was its less commonly used form, the Mngwa's normal form was a large tabby cat, and in this form many generations of Potters had bonded with them as familiars.

The only Head of the House of Potter who hadn't had a Mngwa or Bennu familiar in the last two hundred years was Harry's father James. From the knowledge that the Fates had given them, this was because Dumbledore had manipulated Harry's parents' minds (along with just about every other significant character in his world) to make them turn their backs on the safety of the Potter Estate and forget about all the protections available to them so that they could be hung out as bait for Riddle. Dumbledore's manipulations had also made the rest of the Druids' Alliance forget about the promises they'd made to James and Lily to look after Harry, and he'd even had potions slipped to Gringott and other key Goblins to make them forget about Harry. About the only ones he hadn't interfered with were the Dursleys, Molly Weasley and Severus Snape, because they hadn't needed any inducement to do their best to destroy Harry. One thing he'd done was actually quite impressive, dark, but impressive. When he was binding Harry's magic, he'd managed to alter Harry's magical signature enough to make him compatible with Riddle's brother wand, which also masked him from the Potter familiars, elves, vaults and anything else that could recognise a Potter magical signature. He'd done something similar to James and Lily to keep them away from the Potter protections.

Hedwig, the Mngwa tom Crookshanks and four Mngwa females, Bastet, Mafdet, Pakhet and Sekhmet, all bonded with Harry as his familiars…. But they _also_ bonded with Hermione and Luna, and to a lesser degree Dora and Hestia. Most people just dismissed Crookshanks, Bastet, Mafdet, Pakhet and Sekhmet as tabby cats, which aggravated them but their first priority was to be with their Master and Mistresses at all times, so they ignored the other stupid humans. Hedwig was even less impressed to be dismissed as some sort of exotic parrot, but like the Mngwas, her duty was to be with her Master and Mistresses so she could protect them so she just played along, giving the type of responses that most humans would expect of a parrot.

Another thing they found quite interesting was that when Harry, Hermione and Luna's animagus forms emerged in this timeline, they found that they had broken most of the supposed 'rules' of animagus transformation… in that while all the animagus lore said that it was 'impossible' to have more than one animagus form and they couldn't be magical, they all had Bennu _and_ Mngwa animagus forms….. and they found that they could change between the Bennu and Mngwa's forms at will and use the magical capabilities of both as animagi. Of course, 'everyone' also knew that it was 'impossible' to have an animagus form if you were a metamorphmagus, and they were all metamorphmagi as well. When they helped Dora find her animagus form (also a Mngwa actually), they found that her experience with metamophmagus transformations made the animagus transformations easier for her.

* * *

Aside from their familiars, they had trunk flats which used Wizard, Goblin and Elf magic to create light, airy, roomy homes inside wardrobe trunks. The initial plan for the trunk flats was just to create safe rooms with extremely strong wards, Goblin Floos and basic living facilities, but they soon went way past that.

One of the first additions to Harry, Hermione and Luna's trunk flat was a library, because without the blocks that Dumbledore put on him, Harry was as much of a bookworm as Hermione and Luna. They called on the Potter and Black family magic to cast permanent expansion charms that made the trunk flat enormous inside, then started creating a home that used that space, Elf magic created living gardens and Wizarding Magic added enchanted ceilings and walls for the gardens and enchanted windows for most rooms to bring the outside world into the trunk.

What they created was a large house with 'outdoor' garden areas, training rooms, potions labs, time chambers, everything they could need in a home that was grander and more comfortable than anything any of them had ever lived in. There was more than enough room for Emmeline, Sirius and the Maniple Triarius of sixty elite Goblin guards that Gringott had assigned to protect them, plus Dora and Hestia when they weren't at Hogwarts and Xeno, Pandora, Andromeda and Ted when they weren't tied up with work. This worked so well that the concepts were copied on a smaller scale for the other trunks, and Harry's Haven was their home, though for most of the first year it was located on one of their magical pirate ships.

* * *

They built their plans for the Quidditch World Cup Finals around the trunk flats. They used the wealth and power of the Houses of Potter and Black to get one camp site close to the stadium (which unfortunately meant close to the various Ministries' camp sites as well) and a few others spread around the camp ground that would be used by most of the spectators and planned on setting up magical tents on those camping sites with a few trunk flats inside each. One trunk flat in each tent would serve as a portal for the Aurors, Hitwizards and Goblin Guards if it played out like it had in the other timeline.

As a precautionary measure, they planned to stun the Muggle family who owned the camp ground most of the spectators were staying in and send them somewhere safe until they were sure that the danger had passed, then alter their memories and bring them back when the Magicals had left. Harry and Hermione originally felt guilty about this, but that guilt was quickly put aside when they remembered what had been done to those poor people in the other timeline. They weren't happy with the answer when they asked themselves whether they really believed that the Roberts family would get anything from the Ministry other than being brutally obliviated and stiffed for the fees owed to them, with Mrs Roberts and their daughter possibly being raped in the process.… They didn't have any faith at all in the honesty, integrity or humanity of Bagnold's Ministry people.

Gringotts' Goblins were also preparing rune stones that could be set around the camping areas so that anti-apparation and anti-portkey wards could be activated at a moment's notice if anything happened.

By the time the World Cup Finals came around in the last week of August, they were sure that Hermione's Time Constant theory was holding up, because the Bulgarian's seeker was Ivan Krum, Viktor's older brother. They hadn't heard anything about a brother in the last timeline but he may have died or just walked away from the family in the next six years, but having a Krum as the seeker on the Bulgarian team seemed like a pretty sure sign that this would be playing out much the same way though.

They had told Amelia about Bagman trying to cheat the punters by paying them off in leprechaun gold, so she had MLE Officers watching him and recording what bets he was taking, and she wholeheartedly agreed with the idea of a few of them laying the same bet that the twins had in the other timeline, Krum catching the snitch but Ireland winning the game and the championship. Dora placed bets adding up to Ten Thousand Galleons at almost thirty to one as seven different adult witches (two of them being her parents) and wizards and the greedy idiot just kept laughing as he took the bets because he was certain that that could never happen.

* * *

About twenty minutes before the proceedings were due to start, Harry, Hermione and Luna knew without a doubt that the Triwizard Tournament was returning to Hogwarts after being banned for nearly two hundred years, because Alain Delacour arrived in the Ministry box with his wife Apolline, Fleur who appeared to be a well developed thirteen or fourteen year old even though they knew she couldn't be more than eleven or twelve and must have gone through the Veela change early, and a five or six year old Gabrielle.

Apolline was looking around, trying to find something that she could use distract herself from hexing into oblivion those British, Bulgarian and French Ministry wizards who were making it quite obvious that they regarded her and her not yet eleven year old daughter, the wife and Heiress of Comte Alain Delacour, Chef de la Noblesse Ancienne Famille de Delacour and Sous-Ministre de la Ministère des Affaires Magiques de la France, as some sort of five knut whores who should be grateful that they would deign to allow them to satisfy their carnal desires. When she looked into the next box though, she froze, because there were two Veela over there! The daughter appeared to have just gone through the change as Fleur had, so it was amazing that she could control her allure to this extent.

They were both doing an incredibly good job of covering up their Veela nature, but there was no way of hiding what they were from another Veela. She'd had it with the pigs in the Ministry box, so she interrupted Alain and urgently whispered to him that he _had_ to find a way get them into the box beside them, because there were Veela there and they _weren't_ being treated like cheap whores by the wizards there. Alain looked at the box she was indicating, but while he could see a number of beautiful women, he couldn't see any of the Veela indicators he'd learnt to pick up in the thirteen years he'd been with Apolline and he looked back at her with a question in his eye. She nodded slightly to the woman and girl who were Veela and was about to explode at him because he still looked doubtful but he calmed her by kissing her cheek, whispering in her ear that while he couldn't see it, he didn't doubt that she saw more than he did, and he _did_ see someone over there who could hopefully help them, Marcus Greengrass, one of Magical Britain's ICW representatives who he'd dealt with a number of times over the previous year.

Alain led Apolline and their daughters over to that side of the Ministry box, calling out to Marcus that he'd like to introduce his family. Marcus brought Celeste and their daughters over to introduce them to the Delacours, and the girls' chattering did a good job of covering up what he and Alain were discussing. Marcus had no trouble seeing what the issue was, because the wizards in the Ministry Box hadn't taken their eyes off Apolline and Fleur, so he called Xeno, Pandora, Luna and Hermione over to introduce them to the Delacours, along with Sirius, Emmeline, Harry and Hestia.

Pandora quickly assured Apolline that she and Fleur would be safe from unwanted attention in their box and Sirius insisted that they join them (as the boxes were in his name). Apolline and the girls moved into the box straight away while Alain went to tell Bagnold that his wife had found that some friends she'd met in Paris last year were in the party in the next box and she wished to spend what time she could with them. When Bagnold tried to tell him that the insult of deserting their hosts just so that his _wife_ could chat with her friends would not go unpunished, she discovered why Alain had had such a fearsome reputation as an Auror in his youth.

He spoke in French so that most of the British pigs wouldn't understand what he said, but his tone was unmistakable. " _The insult here is_ _ **your's**_ _Madam_ _e Minister_ _! You have made_ _absolutely_ _ **no** attempt __to curtail or punish the highly inappropriate behaviour these pigs you have invited to your box are exhibiting towards the wife and Heiress of Comte Delacour,_ _Chef de la_ _Noblesse Ancienne_ _Famille de_ _Delacour and Sous-Ministre de la Ministère des Affaires Magiques de la France, who_ _I shouldn't need to remind you_ _are under the protection of_ _ **your**_ _Ministry as we are here at your invitation. I will_ _ **not**_ _allow my family to be_ _subject_ _ed_ _to this type of_ _disgusting_ _behaviour for_ _another_ _moment! Eve_ _n the young wizards_ _in Duc Black's party ha_ _ve_ _shown my family_ _the_ _proper respect and behaved in an exemplary manner towards them while the Wizards th_ _at_ _ **you**_ _invited have all behaved as_ _disgusting_ _uncouth_ _ **pigs**_ _! Y_ _ou can be assured that_ _this insult_ _ **will**_ _be answered_ _ _Madame Minister_!_"

With that, Alain swept out of the Ministry box without another word, brusquely knocking aside any wizards who were stupid enough to get in his way, though he was more polite to the witches he encountered.

* * *

In the Black box, Pandora was explaining to Apolline what Luna, Harry and Hermione had discovered after the Goblins removed all the blocks and bindings from Luna and Hermione (who had had her magic bound to criminally dangerous levels by the Improper Use of Magic Office after a massive burst of accidental magic she had as a toddler). While 'everyone knew' that the last Veela had left Britain nearly two centuries ago to escape the type of treatment that Apolline and Fleur had just been subjected to, in fact the last Veela had just hidden their abilities. Their daughters had all of their Veela abilities tightly bound until they were adults and could learn to control them properly, and in fact binding their abilities helped with this because the constant straining against the bindings generally made them rather more powerful. This meant that they had been successfully masquerading as ordinary human witches for the last two centuries.

Apolline eagerly grasped at Pandora's offer to teach her and Fleur how to control their allure better, especially for Fleur because she was being forced to come to Britain in a couple of months for some tournament. She was shocked by the language Pandora came out with at that revelation and the way she immediately called Harry, Hermione, Luna, Amelia, Sirius and Emmeline over, along with Marcus and Alain.

When they were all there and privacy wards had been cast around them, Pandora asked Apolline to repeat what she'd just said, and Pandora was even more shocked that Harry, Hermione and Luna, who'd been a perfect gentleman and ladies up to this point, even knew the language they were coming out with, let alone said those things. When they had gotten that off their chests, Harry looked Alain in the eye and Alain was taken aback, because this was no boy or pampered young man looking at him, it was a world weary warrior who had seen far too much of the horrors men and beasts were capable of. Harry addressed him in French to ensure that nothing was lost in translation. " _You must get Fleur out of this tournament! If it goes anything like it did last time, Fleur will come close to losing her life a number of times and she will be seriously injured several times, Gabrielle's life will also be put in danger!_ "

" _What are you talking about young man? The last time this tournament was held was nearly tw_ _o_ _hundred years ago!_ "

Hermione and Luna told him over their link that the Delacours would need to be told the truth before they would accept what they were hearing and Harry nodded.

" _By 'last time', Comte Delacour, I am referring to Nineteen Ninety Four when the three of us..._ " He held up Hermione and Luna's hands in an unnecessary explanation of who 'us' was. " _experience_ _d_ _the Triw_ _i_ _zard Tournament because I was forced to compete in it, even though it was supposedly restricted to witches and wizards who had already reached their majority and I was only fourteen at the time. I realise that this must be very hard_ _for you_ _to believe, we will_ _all_ _show you our memories of the times to come but the short story is that the Fates apparently decided that they were not prepared to accept what happens to the world over the next thirteen years_ _so_ _the three of us were killed when we were Twenty One and thrown back to_ _our seven year old bodies_ _last year. I was killed to free me of_ _a soul fragment_ _that Voldemort_ _had_ _attached to me but the girls were taken_ _just_ _close enough to death for their older souls to take over their bodies._ "

Alain was looking around the group for someone to tell him that this madness was nothing more than a boy's flight of fancy, but he was met by grim nods from everyone, and he slumped in defeat. " _I cannot_ _keep_ _my little flower out of this._ _I was shown proof that t_ _he_ _Ministre_ _and his accomplices have everything in place to ensure that if I try to refuse or take my family and flee, I will be arrested and convicted of serious crimes that will ensure that I never leave prison, the titles and everything else will be from stripped_ _from_ _the_ _Maison de Delacour and it will be eradicated, and Apolline and my daughters will be forced to marry_ _far_ _worse animals than_ _ **those**_ _..._ " he angrily jerked a thumb at the Ministry box. " _to be used in any way they wish._ _T_ _he_ _Ministre_ _took great delight in telling me that only the reason I am being kept alive is to make me watch what_ _wa_ _s happening to Apolline and my daughters._ " He began to cry, desolated because he could not protect his family from this.

A hand on his shoulder made him look up into Harry's determined eyes. " _We can help you protect your House and family Comte Delacour._ _With your permission, we can include Fleur in our training, and we can also offer her and Gabrielle protection against being married off to animals such as_ _ **them**_ _against their will..._ " Alain looked at him hopefully, it was a mark of how distraught he was that he hadn't worked out what Harry was offering yet.

" _I would like to propose that the daughters of_ _la_ _Noblesse Ancienne_ _ _Famille_ de Delacour be entered into female line betrothal contracts with the __Chef de la_ _Noblesse Ancienne_ _ _Famille_ de Corbeau..._"

Alain was enraged at the suggestion. " _What is this? Trust my daughters' virtue_ _and happiness_ _to some_ _wizard_ _I have never met, let alone had the opportunity to gauge his honour…._ "

He trailed off because Pandora was laughing delightedly, and while he didn't think there was anything funny about this, he didn't believe that the mother of a Veela who appeared to be close to Fleur's age would ever countenance any young Veela being mistreated.

When Pandora had settled down enough to speak, she stood and curtsied, waving to Harry. " _Comte Delacour, please allow me_ _the honour of_ _introduc_ _ing_ _Comte Henri Corbeau,_ _Chef de la_ _Noblesse Ancienne_ _ _Famille_ de Corbeau._"

Alain looked at Harry, wide eyed, and Harry nodded. " _Yes Comte Delacour, the Head of what was to become the Most Noble and Most Ancient House of Potter defeated the wizard who was_ _Comte Corbeau and_ _Chef de la_ _Noblesse Ancienne Famille de Corbeau_ _in the Norman Conquest_ _then magically claimed everything belonging to the Noblesse Ancienne Maison de Corbeau by right of conquest_ _._ _William the Conqueror had already bestowed a Barony in England on th_ _at_ _wizard_ _to solicit_ _his participation in the war so_ _the_ _British_ _title of Baron Corbeau and the British Noble and Most Ancient House of Corbeau… which is the only non_ _D_ _ruid Most Ancient House_ _in Magical Britain_ _by the way…. were part of what the House of Potter acquired. This means that_ _if we act quickly enough_ _we have the option of creating incontestable magical betrothal contracts between_ _la_ _Noblesse Ancienne Famille de Delacour_ _and_ _la_ _Noblesse Ancienne Famille de Corbea_ _u_ _and the British Noble and Most Ancient House of Corbeau_ _that can_ _remain_ _for as long as your daughters need them to be protected_ _if you and your family wish this_ _because as you know a witch cannot be betrothed or married to more than one wizard_ _…_ _My only condition is that this is_ _all_ _explained to your daughters and they agree_ _of their own free will_ _before we proceed_ _."_

That had Apolline and Fleur launching themselves at Harry to kiss him for offering this and Alain laughed. _"It would appear that at least one of my daughters has already agreed_ _Duc Potter_ _, and I must warn you that our little Gabrielle is a_ _ **huge**_ _fan of Harry Potter, so I do not see her objecting either..."_

He broke off as Harry shook his head tersely. _"Those stories have_ _absolutely_ _ **nothing**_ _to do with me Comte Delacour, they were just the idiotic ramblings of greedy wizards_ _who were_ _trying to make money off of my name, and as I said, I_ _ **insist**_ _that Gabrielle be made to understand what we're proposing here and that the fairy tales about Harry Potter are just that before I will accept that she has agreed_ _to this_ _of her own free will."_

Apolline kissed him again. " _I understand_ _Duc Potter_ _and I promise you that I will ensure that Gabrielle,_ _and Fleur as well,_ _understand the_ _seriousness_ _of the matter and that this has nothing to do with those stories before I bring you_ _their_ _answer_ _s_ _. I_ _only_ _wish that more_ _wizards_ _had your honour_ _my Duc_ _._ "

Harry nodded. "Merci Comtesse Delacour."

At that point the mascots entered the stadium and Harry turned to Apolline again. "Comtesse Delacour, many thousands of wizards are about to become inflamed with desire for the Veela who are the Bulgarian _Mascots…_." He spat that word out in disgust, furious that they would be regarded as nothing but creatures that existed for the entertainment of Wizarding kind. "If this plays out as it did in the timeline we returned from, after the game is finished there will be a massive riot here, and even if no other wizards jump at the opportunity to do so, the bigoted wizards who start it would take any chance to kidnap Veela and enslave them to be used as their sexual playthings whenever they wish. If you have any influence with these witches, they would be safest staying with us until the violence is past."

Apolline turned to look at the Veela down in the stadium and her sharp eyes confirmed what she expected to see. "Oui Duc Potter. Some of them are my cousins, and I am on the Veela Council, so they will listen to me. I will go and talk to them after the game begins."

Harry nodded, relieved, and waved at Balrog. "Balrog and some of our goblin guard will escort you, and they can escort the ladies to our tent as soon as they are free to leave."

She looked at Balrog, Glamring and their guards and raised an eyebrow. Most wizards may think all Goblins are the same, but Veela weren't that stupid, especially Veela who were part of their Nation's Council. This was the first time she'd ever seen High Goblins out in the Wizarding World, and the other Goblins were obviously part of a High Goblin Clan's elite warriors.

"As I said, I am on the Veela Council Duc Potter, the Ministère de la Magie de Bulgaria may be made up of mere wizards, but they are not stupid enough to try and contest my right to order the Veela who accompany their team to retire to a place of safety when I have been warned of a potential threat. _"_

Harry nodded and spoke to Balrog in High Goblin. _"Balrog, please take enough warriors with you to protect_ _Comtesse Delacour_ _and_ _the Veela who will be accompanying you_ _back_ _to our tent. There's plenty of room for them in_ _Harry's Haven_ _and they will be safer in there as well, as we both know that Uncle Gringott had stronger wards put on that than he did anything else."_

Balrog barked a laugh at that and nodded and Harry turned back to Apolline. "Balrog and our guards will escort you to the Veelas' tent and then escort all of you to our tent Comtesse Delacour. I believe you and your family would also be safer staying with us, you can see what protections we have for yourself and inform Comte Delacour of them."

Apolline didn't understand High Goblin, but she'd recognised the name Gringott, which explained where these Goblins had come from, if not why a Wizard would enjoy so much favour from the leader of the Goblin Nation or be taught High Goblin, which most Goblins didn't know.

Once the game began, Apolline departed with Balrog and a couple of Goblin guards, being met by another dozen elite Goblin warriors as they left the stadium. Some of the more headstrong girls who tried to argue about moving were rather forcibly reminded of Apolline's authority, so it wasn't long before they were being escorted to the Black tent and into Harry's Haven.

The fact that _this_ could exist within a wardrobe chest was another shock, but for Apolline the presence of two High Elves there was an even bigger one, because she hadn't thought that any High Elves had remained in this realm…. Who was Duc Potter to have such ties to the fae people?

Harry read the question in her eye when Balrog and the guards brought her back to the box and promised to explain when there was time.

* * *

Ivan was at least at Viktor's level and the outcome of the game was the same as it had been in Ninety Four, so Dora changed into her father's form and went to collect her winnings from Ludo Bagman. Amelia's people were recording Bagman's every move from several angles, so when 'Ted' tested the gold he'd been paid off with then and there and confirmed that it was in fact leprechaun gold, they pounced. Bagman only had enough real gold to cover a third of the bets that 'Ted' was there to collect the winnings on, so after they had recorded the details of every legitimate bet people came to collect their winnings for, the MLE Officers carted him off to start making arrangements to sell nearly everything he owned to cover the _other_ Quarter Million Galleons he owed.

The MLE personnel and Goblins they had on site and the best of the French Aurors who had made sure that they were assigned to Alain, their old boss, were all like coiled springs as they waited for the riot to break out. The moment it did, the designated Goblins activated the Anti-Apparation and Anti-Portkey wards while the rest of them poured out of the tents at full pelt. All the fake Death Eaters were down in under a minute, along with one real Death Eater who was in the process of casting the Dark Mark.

Bagnold was pissed off that Bones had obviously had enough forewarning of the raid to be ready with a response, and she quickly became furious and tried to insist that Baron Macmillan would handle all the questioning of the prisoners because it was his event that they'd struck when she discovered that the ones trying to start the riot had already been arrested and carted off to the Ministry. Amelia just put a confused expression on her face.

"You know that is out of the question Madam Minister. These thugs have been charged with criminal offences and the law clearly states that no one but authorised DMLE personnel can be involved in their questioning until they appear before the Wizengamot. You weren't knocked down or hit in the head in this attack were you Minister? I think we need to get you to Saint Mungos Minister, there must be something wrong if you can forget such basic rules of Law!…. Auror Robards, please get Minister Bagnold to Saint Mungos as quick as you can, tell them that she seems to be having serious memory issues…..."

That was enough to have Bagnold screaming at her. " _There's nothing wrong with my memory and I don't need to go to Saint Mungos! And you will do as you're told Bones! The prisoners will be handed over to_ _Baron_ _Macmillan to be questioned! No one else will question….."_

She was stunned at that point and Amelia kept looking straight at Gawain Robards as she said. "Thank you to whoever it was who stopped Minister Bagnold before she could harm herself. This is obviously far worse than I thought. It would appear that someone has used the disturbance of the riots to cover up their attack on the Minister with confundus, compulsion or memory charms, possibly all three. Auror Robards, please inform the healers of what happened here as soon as you get Minister Bagnold to Saint Mungos, and tell them that I have requested that their best mind healers thoroughly examine her and do what they can to correct her current afflictions…."

Macmillan interrupted at that point. "If you go anywhere near the Minister Robards you will end up in Azkaban with Bones! Arrest Bones immediately! There's nothing wrong with the Minister aside from being attacked on Bones' orders… Well! What are you waiting for? I told you to arrest her! Do it you fool!"

Amelia smiled evilly as she asked. "Auror Longbottom, would you agree that the situation we find ourselves in at the moment should be regarded as rather suspicious?"

Frank matched her smile. "Yes Director Bones, _highly_ suspicious! First Minister Bagnold irrationally orders us to hand over our prisoners to Baron Macmillan, who has absolutely no training or background in Magical Law Enforcement, for questioning… when Minister Bagnold would normally know full well that that is a complete breach of the Magical Law Enforcement regulations and procedures that have been in place for decades. Then when you try to get her to qualified healers at Saint Mungos to try and get something done for her before the problem becomes more serious….. Macmillan attempts to countermand your instructions, saying that there's nothing wrong with her when he has no qualifications or experience as a healer _either_ , makes a wild accusation about you ordering the Minister to be attacked, which everyone here can testify is an outright lie, and then attempts to order an Auror to arrest the Director of the DMLE on that baseless charge, when any fool knows that no one in the DMLE can act on orders that come from anyone _but_ the Director of the DMLE…. Yes Director, I would say that the situation we are in at the moment is highly suspicious, and the evidence is all pointing to Macmillan here being the one who attacked the Director with Confundus or Compulsion charms. I believe that there is sufficient evidence to arrest Macmillan and question him under Veritaserum."

Macmillan tried to run at that but didn't get two steps before Gawain stunned him too. Amelia smiled at him. "Nice work, thank you Gawain. Now, if you can take Minister Bagnold to Saint Mungos and explain our concerns to the healers there, I think it would be best if you arrested Macmillan Frank, as his father would no doubt try and use the House of Macmillan's station to attack anyone else who arrested his heir, but you're at least a rank above him."

Both men grinned as they nodded and said "Yes Ma'am!", then did as she requested.

Unfortunately, Macmillan and the Death Eater who was captured at the camp ground had both given oaths which killed them as soon as they tried to answer questions about who was behind this, and the fake Death Eaters were just thugs who had been hired to cause a ruckus by Macmillan.

Macmillan starting to say "Minister" wasn't enough to pin anything on Bagnold and she'd had her people at St Mungo's waiting to intercept and shut up anyone on the raid who was brought in. Gawain couldn't refuse to hand her over to them or challenge them when they reported that they'd found and removed compulsion charms from her, which covered her arse.

The best they could hope for was that losing Macmillan would cause a hitch in Bagnold's plans, and that she'd be angry enough to do a bit of a purge when she tried to find who is was who leaked the plans for the raid, because without knowledge of the fact that Harry, Hermione and Luna had memories from the future, the only logical conclusion would be that someone had talked.


	7. All Roads Lead To Hogwarts

******Usual disclaimers, no rights to existing characters, this is not JKR's HP, the real world or a Disney Princess story and there will probably be a few changes in the first hour or so after it's posted because things invariably look different in the published version and I don't always like the way it came out******

They reached an agreement about the betrothal contracts and had them all properly accepted and registered before the Delacours returned to France. Ted and the others at Rhys, Fleamont and Tonks had managed to come up with an ingenious solution for that which was incontrovertible _and_ managed to give Fleur and Gabrielle the protection they needed in both France and Britain. Witches could not be betrothed or married to more than one wizard, but the contracts stated that up until the first marriage clause was activated, Fleur and Gabrielle Delacour of the Noblesse Ancienne Famille de Delacour de France were betrothed to Henri Corbeau, in the role of both the Head of the Noble and Most Ancient House of Corbeau of Britain and Chef de la Noblesse Ancienne Famille de Corbeau de France. Under these contracts, if and when the first marriage clause was activated, the remaining Delacour daughter's betrothal contract with the other house would be confirmed, but until then, they were both protected by betrothal contracts to the heads of powerful houses in both countries.

The Delacours took a few trunk flats back to France with them, because not only would Fleur be training with Harry, Hermione, Luna and the others, she, Apolline and Gabrielle were all working with Pandora to learn how to control their Veela allure. The allure wasn't a problem for Gabrielle yet of course, but starting to learn how to control it and her other magical abilities now would give her better control over all of her magic.

Fleur was in the Goblin time chambers for most of the time up until she started at Beauxbatons and her first priority was learning to control her allure, because her time at school would be much easier if she didn't have to deal with wizards chasing her and witches hating her all the time. They would be emphasising the fact that she had been allocated one of the small private bedchambers in the dorms as Heiress to the Chef de la Noblesse Ancienne Famille de Delacour and the betrothed of the Chef de la Noblesse Ancienne Famille de Corbeau... But the fact that the Ministry's people were bound to be making sure that everyone knew that she was a Veela, and that she had been made part of the Beauxbatons Triwizard Tournament delegation before she even started there would make life hard for her, so being able to control her allure enough to raise questions about whether she really was a Veela with the majority of the school should help improve her lot there.

The main reason for her to have her own bedchamber was so that she could access her trunk flat freely. She slept in the trunk flat for protection, as well as using its Goblin Floo to join the others for training. She also had a Delacour House Elf with her to look after her, and Pakhet for protection. As familiars, the Mngwas were far more than animals, and after some debate they had accepted that Fleur's connection with their Master and Mistresses was similar to Dora's and Hestia's so Pakhet agreed to stay with Fleur to protect her.

* * *

In Britain, they were also having spirited discussions about whether the other children should be starting at Hogwarts after all, with the Triwizard Tournament coming six years early. The fact that Minerva and the Hogwarts Board still hadn't been told about the Tournament was worrying, because it implied that Dumbledore and Bagnold were confident that they had enough leverage to force them to agree to host the Tournament at the last minute, and with Bagnold involved they probably did. Madame Maxime, the Headmistress of Beauxbatons, hadn't officially been told about the Tournament yet either, but the French Ministry would almost certainly be planning to use her status as a half-giantess to force her to go along with it.

The family eventually agreed that it wouldn't be fair to hold the others back after they'd been training so hard for the last twelve months (elapsed time, three years actual) to get there so Griselda arranged for all of them to take the First Year exams. Harry, Hermione and Luna also took the Second Year exams, so they would be going into Third year like Fleur while the rest of them were going into Second Year with Percy.

None of them had any interest in pandering to 'traditions' that had for the most part just been created by Dumbledore to show the Great Albus Dumbledore in the best light…. So they used the Goblin Floos to take them straight to the common room of the Druids' Tower that Hogwarts had created for them, and they had their own sorting ceremony there with the four House Masters and House Mistresses and other staff in attendance (Poppy, Hagrid and Missus Figg were included in this because of their backgrounds with Harry).

No-one in the chamber was at all surprised when they were all sorted into Hufflepuff with Dora and Hestia because after all, Myrddin (the sorting hat) was an Heirloom of the House of Gryffindor and therefore Harry's to command. Bill, Charlie and Percy remained in Gryffindor, but that didn't stop them residing in the Druids' Tower and taking lessons with the rest of the family.

They had five adult humans (Emmeline Black nee Vance, Sirius Black, Patricia Lupin nee Rakepick, Remus Lupin and Angela Fawley, also known as Emma or Auntie Em, Uncle Siri, Auntie Patty, Uncle Remi and Angie) to provide protection and tutoring, fifteen students, six elves (Efa, Emyr, Winky, Dobby, Sally and Tommy) and Balrog, Gamling and at times the full Maniple Triarius of sixty elite Goblin guards residing in the tower, and many others would be coming and going.

Patty had been four years ahead of Lily and the Marauders, but she took them under her wing, as she understood the trials of being a brilliant Muggleborn witch at Hogwarts and was delighted about how the Marauders' antics upset the Purebloods. Dumbledore and the Purebloods had tried to get rid of her many times, because she enjoyed rubbing the Purebloods' noses in the fact that she was far better than any of them and had put many Pureblood wizards in the infirmary when they tried to teach her her place and show her what a Mudblood witch was good for as they saw it, but some of the Professors and Board members stood up for her and prevented her being expelled.

Her standing up to the Purebloods may have been the reason her family was targeted by the Death Eaters and wiped out in late Seventy Three, but whatever the reason, she knew that she had no hope of getting anywhere in Magical Britain so with nothing to hold her there she took off to America as soon as she had her NEWT results. She was a promising MACUSA Auror on the rise when Gringotts poached her in Seventy Nine, and she had risen to Gringotts' Head Curse Breaker by the time Harry, Hermione and Luna were cast back to that timeline in Eighty Seven.

Most of the family ribbed Patty and Emma good naturedly about being cradle snatchers, because they were both about four years older than Remus and Sirius, but everyone was happy for them because it was the happiest any of them had been since their light hearted school days.

Angie was an up and coming Curse Breaker who Gringott had hired when she finished Hogwarts in Eighty Five and Patty took under her wing when she became Head Curse Breaker. Like Patty, Gringott had assigned her to help protect and tutor Harry, Hermione, Luna and the others. Alastor Moody was in much the same position as Minerva and Griselda, so he had made Angie his heir to prevent the line of Moody dying out. She was now Baroness Fawley in her own right because over the years he'd defeated two Heads of Noble Houses who challenged him and then claimed everything belonging to them and their houses by right of Conquest.

* * *

The Ministry made its move about an hour before the sorting feast was due to start. Dumbledore turned up at Minerva's office with Tony Abbot as the newly promoted head of Foreign Affairs and Sports and Delores Umbridge as the _Senior_ Undersecretary to the Minister (a title given to her by Bagnold just to shut the pretentious cow up because the Minister only had one aide). Ludo Bagman would be heavily involved with the Tournament as the head of Magical Games and Sports, but he was left out of this because no-one trusted the fool to keep his mouth shut.

It turned out that Dumbledore had been fabricating evidence against Minerva and others at Hogwarts for decades and this was what they used to force Minerva to capitulate. She was put in much the same position as Alain Delacour and Olympe Maxime (Beauxbatons' Headmistress) had been, in that if she didn't go along with them, key people at Hogwarts and their houses would lose everything. Dumbledore had carefully twisted the facts enough to ensure that Filius Flitwick and Rubeus Hagrid, as Goblin and Giant half-breeds respectively, would be put to death if they were convicted, and the Purebloods would make sure that they had enough people in the Wizengamot session to guarantee that they were.

With Harry, Hermione and Luna's knowledge from the other timeline, the family was expecting this though and they had plans in place to deal with it, so after thoroughly insulting all three of them and their families Minerva 'buckled' and gave in to their extortion. She was always going to give in, but wasn't about to forego the satisfaction of sticking it to these bastards with their delusions of grandeur, or adequacy for that matter. Abbott and Umbridge left the meeting and Hogwarts in a huff about the way she'd ripped into them, but they were gloating about the fact that they'd managed to force her to capitulate.

* * *

Dumbledore was taken aback and furious when he strutted into the Great Hall for the Sorting Feast to be confronted with ten new students at the Hufflepuff table, not to mention Sirius Black, Emmeline Vance, Remus Lupin and fourteen Goblin Guards, chatting with the four House Masters and Mistresses. He charged over, demanding to know what was going on and that these people and creatures leave Hogwarts _immediately_ , and it didn't click until he heard Minerva's voice ring out at the same volume as his, saying. "Shut up ye old fool! Ye have nay right to demand _anything_ in Hogwarts… And if ye'd actually read the Hogwarts Charter at some time in the forty years you were Headmaster as ye were required to, ye'd know that this is nay more than the Heads and Heirs of the Most Ancient Houses invoking their _incontrovertible_ rights according to the Charter!" that someone had cast something to ensure that everyone in the Great Hall heard what was said, but Minerva wasn't finished yet.

"As ye obviously canna be bothered reading the Charter that ye swore an oath the abide by when you became Deputy Headmaster, let alone Headmaster, I'll tell ye _once_ what rights Duke Potter and his fellow Heads and Heirs of the Most Ancient Houses have invoked Dumbledore! Firstly, they have invoked their right to be housed separately from the other students, so Hogwarts has created the Druids' Tower for them and they are having Messers Weasley, Miss Jones and Miss Tonks join them there, as is also their right. And Secondly, they have invoked their right to employ their own staff, tutors and guards and be accompanied by them at all times. _That_ is why Earl and Countess Black, Baron and Baroness Lupin, Baroness Fawley and their honoured guards are here…." She bowed her head to each as she named them, and Dumbledore belatedly realised that the witch she'd identified as Baroness Lupin was in fact that Mudblood Runepick who'd been the bane of his existence when she was at Hogwarts over a decade ago.

Dumbledore was shocked when he realised that this boy he'd thought to be a teenager was Potter, he'd been told that he looked and acted years older than he actually was, but hadn't thought it could be this much. Nevertheless he tried again. "The parents of our other students will never allow that werewolf and those Goblins to remain in Hogwarts, the risk to the children of the Noble Houses is too great…."

This time he was cut off by a younger, quieter voice, but everyone in the Great Hall still heard what was said. "Is your hearing faulty Professor Dumbledore? As Headmistress McGonagall just told you, our _incontrovertible_ right to be accompanied by our staff and guards and employ private tutors is guaranteed by the Hogwarts Charter. Baron and Baroness Lupin are my Champions as well as our tutors and the Goblin Nation has assigned our honoured Goblin companions to protect the Head of the Most Noble and Most Ancient House of Potter and the other Heads and Heirs of Most Ancient Houses in our party, and for that matter I know for a fact that many of those Noble Houses you referred to make use of the services of the Goblin Nation to protect their families, homes and businesses…. And not that we are answerable to you in _any_ way Professor Dumbledore, but as nearly everyone else in the Magical World knows, Baron Lupin was officially certified as being free from his previous affliction of Lycanthropy with a great deal of publicity over nine months ago…. An affliction which, by the way, you had full knowledge of when you authorised his attendance here as Hogwarts' Headmaster when he was at Hogwarts. No students or staff were harmed in any way as a result of Baron Lupin attending Hogwarts as a werewolf, in fact he performed well enough while he was here to be consistently one of the best students in his year _and_ be made Gryffindor's male prefect for his Fifth, Sixth and Seventh years. I must say Professor Dumbledore, your wilful ignorance of or forgetting so many important facts astounds and disturbs me."

Being so soundly put down by a new student did far more to destroy Dumbledore's image than McGonagall's abuse had and Dumbledore knew that he would lose all credibility if this continued any longer (his ego couldn't take any more battering either), so he just turned and stalked away without another word.

* * *

The First Years arrived and were sorted soon after that, and then Dumbledore stood and announced that the Quidditch Cup was being cancelled this year because Magical Britain had succeeded where all others had failed and the Triwizard Tournament was returning to Hogwarts nearly two hundred years after it was stopped. Minerva let him go, though she couldn't hold in her unladylike snort of derision when he was going on about 'eternal glory', then she stood to address the students.

"As the older students saw earlier..." waving to the group at the Hufflepuff table "Professor Dumbledore often fails to check his facts before he speaks. One thing I must correct here and now is the statement that the Hogwarts' Quidditch Cup is being cancelled, because that is most definitely _not_ happening!…."

Dumbledore was on his feet at that. "I can assure you Madam that you are incorrect! The Hogwarts Quidditch Cup _will_ be cancelled this year, as we will be using the Quidditch stadium for at least one of the tournament tasks so the tournament committee is requisitioning the stadium for the year!"

Once again, everyone in the hall heard her when she turned and spoke to him. "Sit down and shut up ye old fool! The Ministry _may_ be able to force Hogwarts to host this tournament, but it _cannot_ force us to cancel the sport that has been enjoyed here in one form or another for over four hundred years longer than the Ministry has existed… and nor can it just appropriate Hogwarts facilities like our Quidditch Stadium all year for one or two events which will only involve _one_ Hogwarts student!…. For that matter, I'm confident that the Hogwarts Board will support me in refusing to allow the Ministry to appropriate our Quidditch Stadium for those events too! If the Ministry is so desperate for this tournament to be hosted at Hogwarts to improve _the_ _ir_ image in the eyes of the rest of the Magical World, they can build any and all facilities required for this tournament themselves, and not one knut of the money to do that will be coming from Hogwarts!"

Dumbledore looked like he was going to explode, but he knew that there was no way he could win this so he shut his mouth and sat down as she turned to face the students again. "I realise that grand phrases like ' _Eternal glory_!' and a thousand galleon purse for the winner may sound inspiring, but I urge all of you to take the time to research the facts about the Triwizard Tournament before you commit yourselves to it, because there was a very good reason for it to be cancelled nearly two hundred years ago….. there wasn't a single year where contestants and others weren't killed and injured in this tournament…." She turned and glared at Dumbledore. "And for that reason I am holding Professor Dumbledore _personally_ responsible for ensuring that no Hogwarts students who have not yet reached their age of majority can be entered into the Triwizard Tournament!"

He went white at that, because that blasted witch had just let everyone in the Great Hall know that this tournament had been cancelled because it was too dangerous and then made it _his_ responsibility to ensure that no under age students could be entered…. but the whole reason for pushing this through in the first year Potter was at Hogwarts was to get rid of the brat and destroy the Druid Alliance's image before they got any more powerful. If he'd been paying any attention at all to the students and staff, he would have realised that trying to ignore her and act as though she hadn't said anything had lost him even more respect than a curt response would have.

* * *

Dumbledore was even more incensed the next morning when he was informed that none of the Druids students would be attending his transformation classes, they would be privately tutored instead. The difference between his classes and the other core classes they were being tutored for though was that while the Defence Professor had been told that these students were learning a different style from normal Wizarding Defence and offered the opportunity to observe what they were actually learning, and the Astronomy Professor was told something similar, _he_ was just told that they didn't believe he had anything to offer them at that level and they were uncomfortable being around him unless it was absolutely necessary.

Aside from having to put up with Dumbledore and the children of his and Bagnold's supporters, their Hogwarts experience wasn't too bad for the first couple of months. Either Emma, Patty or Angie accompanied their groups to every 'regular' class they had so that the girls had someone to give them protection in the loos etc where the wizards and goblins couldn't accompany them. The only one who didn't have visible guards with him most of the time was Bill, and he was usually being shadowed by at least one disillusioned Goblin.

This was generally the way things went up to Halloween… Their 'regular' classes were less challenging than they'd come to expect or liked, but they had extra tutoring sessions to make up for that. It also took a while for others to come to accept the fact that their Goblin silver Heirloom daggers configured as stilettos without cross guards were the only 'wands' most of them used and they used them in either hand interchangeably (they didn't let others see them casting simultaneously with both hands), but they did….. And they were getting to know other children close to their age too, which was an unusual experience for most of them.

By the time Halloween came around, things had settled down for them, and for Fleur a well. She had started as a Third Year like Harry, Hermione and Luna, but as a Veela she had been training for years. It was traditional that Veela didn't start school until after they had gone through their Veela change, because they grew and developed so much in the few weeks they were going through the change that they appeared to be years older afterwards, and their mothers, cousins and the like prepared them to enter life as a witch as soon as the change was completed.

The training to control her allure was helping her be accepted by the students and staff, but of course when she was forced to participate in the Ministère's Triwizard Tournament selection trials and officially came out on top when she knew as well as everyone else that while she did very well in some areas, she _didn't_ come out ahead of others in every area, caused considerable friction with the other students. It was only the fact that telling people that she didn't want to be in the damned Tournament but the Ministère was determined that she compete and was probably planning to make sure she died doing that would put her parents and little sister at risk that made her keep her silence. She went to her bedchamber early every night and spent half the night training with Harry and the others in a time chamber, in hope that they'd manage to come out of this alive.

* * *

Beauxbatons' giant flying carriage pulled by a dozen Abraxans was the first of their visitors to arrive, and Dumbledore and Abbot were suspicious when the Hogwarts staff and the Druids group, who had basically told them to fuck off when they insisted that everyone wait outside for the visiting schools' delegations to arrive, came out just before the carriage came into sight. The representative of the equivalent of the French Department of Magical Games and Sports, Cyrille Lestrange, was outraged when Olympe sent him flying with a sweep of her arm and a brusque " _Ladies first you pig!_ " in French when he tried to exit the carriage first with all the pomp and ceremony his rank deserved and Dumbledore and Abbot had to jump out of the way to avoid being run down as she swept past them to greet Minerva.

They had already scripted a discussion that was sure to get up Dumbledore and the Ministry officials' noses, and Lestrange's insistence that the carriage be stopped right in front of Hogwarts' main entrance assisted with this. Minerva politely requested that Olympe allow their gamekeeper to move their carriage off to where it would stand while they were there because it was blocking the entrance to the castle and they were expecting the Durmstrang delegation to arrive at any minute and Olympe responded that she was pleased that they had Monsieur Hagrid available for this…. Because _ordinary_ men or wizards would not be able to handle her petits bébés… but added that she hoped Monsieur Hagrid had remembered that her petits bébés only drank single malt whiskey. Minerva assured her that Hagrid had laid in stocks of the whiskey for her babies, adding that it was a good thing that they were in Scotland, where it came from and they shared a good natured laugh at that.

By then the Beauxbatons students had all exited the carriage and were standing shivering in the snow, so Olympe put her hand out to Fleur. Fleur came forward to curtsey to Minerva and greet her and Olympe said. "I am hereby transferring Baroness Delacour into the custody of you and her betrothed's chaperones Headmistress McGonagall, as per Comte Delacour's request."

Lestrange pushed his way forward. _"What do you think you're doing Maxime? The Veela is staying in our carriage where I can keep an eye on her_ _at all times_ _!_ _And we're having that fake betrothal cancelled!_ _"_ He went to push Fleur back towards the carriage as he snarled _"Get back where you're supposed to be_ _wh_ _….."_ but whatever else he was intending to say was lost in a squeal as a dainty hand clamped onto his wrist with a grip hard enough to threaten to crush the bones and stopped him touching Fleur.

The quiet voice that hissed. "If you lay one finger on Baroness Delacour you will _die_ pig!" at him was so menacing that Lestrange wet himself.

Patty kept her grip on Lestrange's wrist as she politely inclined her head to Fleur. "Bonjour Baroness Delacour. I am Baroness Patricia Lupin, and I will be one of your chaperones while you are here with us. I am also one of your betrothed's champions so I hope to be the one who gets to respond to this pig's slight on your honour, and Comte Corbeau's!"

By then Dumbledore and Abbot had charged up, full of outrage. "What the hell do you think you're doing? That's a Ministry official who's here on government business! Release him at once and stay right where you are until the Aurors get here to arrest you!"

The look Patty gave Dumbledore left no doubt what she thought him, but the one she turned on Abbot wasn't much better. " _He's_ never been anything but a jumped up commoner, what's your excuse Abbott? Your House is supposedly Noble, even if my Lord's House has shoes older than your House's title, yet you stand there and allow a pig like this insult Baroness Delacour, the Heiress to the French titles of Comtess Delacour and Chef de la Noblesse Ancienne Famille de Delacour, who is _also_ the betrothed of Comte Corbeau, Chef de la Noblesse Ancienne Famille de Corbeau in France and Baron Corbeau, Head of the Noble and Most Ancient House of Corbeau here, also known as Duke Henry Potter, Head of the Most Noble and Most Ancient House of Potter and its Associated Houses. If this pig had finished the word he started to say or laid one finger on Baroness Delacour, I would have been _forced_ to kill him, and you just stood there and did nothing? And you must _surely_ understand the seriousness of threatening to interfere with a magically accepted betrothal between two of the most powerful families of France and Britain? Haven't you bothered to learn the Laws of Magical Britain or the countries your little department deals with at _all_?"

She turned her head to look at Harry, Sirius and Emma. "My Lords, My Lady, I believe that this matter needs to be taken to the Wizengamot and the ICW before these idiots manage to insult someone badly enough to start a war… Of course _this_ is ample evidence that the problem goes further than Magical Britain, but then it's a Lestrange, so I'd be surprised if it could manage to write its own name." Harry shot a look at Emma and she nodded. "Agreed Baroness Lupin, I will contact Countess Marchbanks, Earl Ogden and Earl Greengrass immediately and appraise them of the situation here…. But I believe that it should be safe to let _that_ go now as it appears to have fainted, I'd suggest that you take its wands and give them to Madame Maxime for safe keeping first though."

Patty nodded, calling "Accio Wands" and passing them to Olympe as she caught them before dropping Lestrange into the puddle he'd made.

* * *

The elves popped Lestrange off to the infirmary and Hagrid came and led Olympe's Abraxans and the Beauxbatons carriage away just before the waters started bubbling out in the middle of Black Lake. Most of the students thought the ship rising up out of the lake was impressive, so they couldn't work out why the Druids' group was laughing dismissively until one of the Ravenclaws heard 'Bran', 'Raven' and 'Flying Dutchman' mentioned and suddenly remembered the infamous Potter and Black magical pirate fleets. He (of course, boys are much more interested in pirates than girls) told a few of the others and soon enough word had gotten around so half of the students were laughing, compared to those legendary ships the Durmstrang ship _was_ rather a let down.

They sat there, bobbing up and down for a while to make sure that they had everyone's attention and then the ship started to glide towards the shore, propelled by magic. A few people noted Harry grinning like a loon and starting to count something down on his fingers and were wondering what he was up to until there was a loud scream from the Durmstrang ship and it suddenly turned around and headed away from the shore. It stopped out in the middle of Black Lake for a while until there was a crack of someone apparating away and the ship turned around to charge for the shore again.

As soon as the gangway touched the shore, a furious wizard stormed off the ship and raced up to them, demanding that whoever it was who had laid that trap for their headmaster be turned over to them for judgement. Harry leaned over and whispered to Emma, because she had a cooler head and knew the protocols of magical law and etiquette far better than he and Sirius did. She nodded again.

" _ **Demand?**_ _You would do well to watch your tongue sir! The magical laws of Magical Britain have been set in the very stones of this castle for over a thousand years. They're some of the oldest magical laws of Magical Europe and they give this site more autonomy than any other site in Magical Europe. Now, if you're done with frothing at the mouth,_ _tell me_ _exactly_ _what_ _happened?_ "

The wizard was taken aback at being put in his place like that but he was more level headed than the rest of them. The fact that she was actually speaking quite good Norwegan helped because he didn't have to translate what she said in his head, and he knew his history well enough to accept that there were sites where magic ruled. " _As our ship approached_ _the shore, Headmaster Karkaroff suddenly fell to the deck, screaming in pain, we could see his arm starting to blacken as if it were burning so we quickly turned the ship around and headed back to the middle of the lake. The attack stopped_ _when we got further out_ _and after we cast some healing spells on his arm to rectify the worst of the damage Headmaster Karkaroff apparated to the town, Hog Mead I think he called it, to wait there until we rectified the problem._ "

At that, they all turned to look at Dumbledore, who was doing a very poor job of trying to look as though he hadn't known anything about Karkaroff being Durmstrang's Headmaster, then turned back to the Bulgarian official and Emma went on. _"Are you aware?…_ _Oh_ _I am sorry, in our haste we_ _have_ _failed to_ _introduce ourselves… I am Countess Emmeline Black, Regent for Duke Potter and the Most Noble and Most Ancient House of Potter and its Associated Houses…. and you are_ _good sir_ _?"_

" _Forgive me Countess Black, I quite forgot my manners due to the situation….. I am Baron Peder_ _Brännvin of what you would call the Department of International Cooperation of the Nordic Magical Congress My Lady..."_

Emma quirked a smile at his name. _"_ _ _Brännvin_ , like vodka and such?"_

Peder gave a small bow with a laugh. _"Indeed My Lady, my family have produced_ _much of_ _the_ _specially_ _enhanced_ _ _Brännvin_ that has been sold throughout Magical Europe for the last thousand years. Because of this, p_ _eople started referring to my forefathers as_ _Brännvin_ _and_ _it was_ _adopted as our family name centuries ago_ _."_

" _I must introduce you to our Chief Warlock, Earl Ogden, his family's fortune came from their Fire Whiskey production, so I am sure that the two of you would find you have much in common."_

Peder bowed again. _"I would_ _be delighted to_ _trad_ _e_ _distillery_ _tip_ _s with Earl Ogden My Lady."_

" _I will try to arrange for a chat in the near future Baron_ _ _Brännvin_ … but what I started to ask you was, are you aware that your Headmaster Karkaroff is in fact a marked Death Eater, one of what most called Lord Voldemort's followers?"_

Their pleasant chat was all but forgotten as he spat out. _**"** **A** **Death Eater?"**_

" _I take that you were not aware of this fact then_ _Baron_ _ _Brännvin__ _?"_

" _No My Lady, I certainly was **not**!"_

" _We_ _ll just about everyone here in Britain was! We_ _will need to confirm this with Lady Hogwarts, but wards to identify_ _the_ _Death Eaters'_ _marks_ _among other_ _dark objects_ _were_ _implement_ _ed last year, and I believe it_ _is possible_ _that_ _they have now changed_ _to actively prohibit the entry of anything_ _like_ _them which might put the children at risk, if you_ _would_ _allow us to ascertain whether this is the case_ _Baron_ _Brännvin_ _?"_

Peder nodded, but his eyes widened after she nodded to Harry and he called "My Lady Helena?", because the ghost of a beautiful woman wafted out of the castle.

The ghost bowed her head regally to Harry and the rest of their party and they all bowed or curtsied, greeting her politely with "Lady Helena."

Harry went on. "My Lady Helena, would you do us the boon of asking Lady Hogwarts a question on our behalf?"

"Certainly My lord, what is your question?"

"Thank you My Lady, our question was, have Hogwarts' wards been changed to specifically prohibit the entry of the Death Eaters' Dark Mark and other Dark Objects?"

There was a slight delay and then she nodded. "Yes My Lord, with the Founders' Heirs at Hogwarts and the discussions around the castle about all the other people who may be coming to Hogwarts for this Tournament, Lady Hogwarts changed the state of those wards to prohibit the entry of anyone carrying evil objects such as them."

Dumbledore exploded at that. "This is ridiculous, I demand that those wards be changed to give Headmaster Karkaroff access to Hogwarts immediately! He is a key member of the organisers of this tournament and he _must_ be granted access to Hogwarts!"

Harry ignored him as he turned to Baron Brännvin and bowed, speaking to him in better Norwegan than Emma had. _"_ _Baron_ _ _Brännvin__ _._ _I apologise for any_ _inconvenience_ _this may cause Durmstrang's_ _Triwizard_ _delegation, but I am afraid that I cannot in good faith ask Lady Hogwarts to reverse the controls that she has put in_ _place to protect your students as well as our's and Beauxbatons'. I noted your reaction when Duchess Black told you that Headmaster Karkaroff was a Death Eater so you obviously have_ _some_ _idea of what they are capable of, but with all due respect, I doubt that you understand_ _how truly foul they are._ _Death Eaters_ _had to perform torture and murder for Voldemort's amusement just to get their mark_ _s_ _and_ _nearly all of_ _the_ _m_ _went on to perform far fouler deeds_ _after that_ _. The only_ _one_ _I know of who_ _tru_ _ly repented was Earl Black's brother, who didn't understand what he had gotten himself into_ _as an impressionable teenager_ _until it was too late but_ _when_ _he_ _did, he_ _willingly gave his life doing what he could to try and help_ _fight_ _Voldemort._ _It is my understanding that it is not possible to renounce Voldemort and live once you have taken his mark, so any_ _one_ _who is currently_ _alive_ _and_ _carr_ _ies_ _his mark ha_ _s_ _ **not**_ _renounced him or_ _their foul deed_ _s. I hope you understand that we will not allow any such as that to enter Hogwarts with the children of our three schools here so, as I said, the wards that prevent_ _ed_ _Headmaster Karkaroff from entering Hogwarts will remain in place."_

Peder nodded. _"I concur with your views on this Duke Potter and I am disgusted to hear that a Death Eater has been in a position to twist the minds of Durmstrang's students. If someone could give me access to a_ _f_ _loo that I can use to speak to my superiors in the Nordic Congress I will try to get someone more suitable here to replace Karkaroff as soon as possible…."_ He lowered his voice. _"_ _And i_ _f Karkaroff w_ _ere_ _to be arrested before anyone could do anything about getting him out of Britain, I would personally regard that as a very good thing."_

Harry nodded with a smile and turned to ask Minerva whether someone could give Baron Brännvin access to an international floo so he could request instructions from his superiors in Norway. Professor Sprout offered to do that and Harry stepped aside to make a quick mirror call to Amelia about the fact that the Death Eater Karkaroff was currently in Hogsmeade.

Dumbledore was still raging so Harry cut him off. " **Professor** _ **Dumbledore!**_ I find it inconceivable that someone who has called himself the Leader of the _Light_ for decades would ever try and demand that wards protecting children from foul beasts such as Death Eaters be removed, but you can save your breath… Headmistress McGonagall only has access to control the normal functions of Hogwarts wards, she cannot do anything about the wards that Lady Hogwarts has changed to protect the children inside Hogwarts. If you had been listening instead of raving, you would have noted that Lady Helena said that Lady Hogwarts made that change to protect the Founders' _Heirs,_ so Countess Hufflepuff is obviously not the only Founder's Heir currently here and _all_ of the Heirs would have to agree to change the wards back to get Lady Hogwarts to do so…. If it was me I'd never agree to removing something that I believe makes everyone here a lot safer."

"But can't you see that this is taking away his chance to turn to the light? He cannot change unless he is given a chance to do so!"

" _Are you_ _ **kidding**_ _me?_ Death Eaters are worse than animals! They have no interest in changing or turning to the _light_ , the only thing that ever holds them back from raping, pillaging, torturing and murdering anyone and everyone they get the urge to is fear of getting caught by someone who hasn't had their hands tied by hypocritical bastards like _you_! My parents, Hestia's, Sue's and so many others would have been alive if not for _**you**_ , you bastard. Your own sister would have been alive if not for you. You've got more innocent blood on your hands than most Death Eaters because you've used your positions to do whatever you could to prevent anyone dealing with the blight that you released on the world….. _twice_! You helped your lover Grindelwald become what he was and just about moulded Tom Riddle into what he was, and then you tried to make sure that my upbringing was even worse than Riddle's! What were you trying to do old man? Create yet another Dark Lord and get one of us to destroy the other so that you could sneak up behind whoever was left and curse us in the back like you did your lover Gellert? I'm _so_ sorry that I ruined your plans by escaping the hells you put me in to be taken in by the people I was meant to go to in the first place and start having a decent life. Don't push me you old bastard, _I_ won't give Dark Lords like you a second chance!"

Dumbledore was staring at him in shock and horror, trying to work out how they could have found out so much about the secrets he was certain he'd managed to bury deep enough that no-one would ever find them... he put the language down to that Mudblood's influence as Harry's apparent age and manner made him forget that he was supposedly only eight.

Harry felt the mirror in his pocket warm up and went off to answer the call. As expected it was Auntie Ami and she was calling to tell him that they had Karkaroff and were just starting to question him under Veritaserum.

Peder was smiling when he returned about fifteen minutes later, because while he was on the floo call to Norway, he was told that they'd just been advised by the British DMLE that Karkaroff had been arrested in Hogsmeade after someone recognised him, and he'd already admitted to enough crimes to ensure that he'd never be leaving Britain, not alive anyway. He was also told that Durmstrang's Deputy Headmaster was being promoted to Headmaster and would be arriving at Hogwarts as soon as he'd briefed someone to take over running the school, which should be within a week or two. He thanked Minerva for getting their other teacher to bring their students in from the ship, because he'd forgotten all about them in the initial madness.

Abbot wasn't looking anywhere near as happy when he came back from a long discussion with the head of the French equivalent of the Department of International Cooperation. Lestrange was being recalled and replaced, because after Abbot recounted what had happened there, they had reluctantly agreed that leaving him there would almost certainly cause major issues in both France and Britain. He should have expected this when he heard that Dumbledore had talked someone into sending a Lestrange for this thing because it was common knowledge that the Lestranges blamed Harry Potter for the British branch of the family being wiped out and wanted to return the favour.

* * *

By the time the feast began, Dumbledore was back to deluding himself that he had everything under control. He gave another big spiel about eternal glory and all the other shite and they got Mrs Figg to bring the casket with the goblet out. Harry, Hermione and Luna were talking to each other over their links about how much better a spectacle it was to have a well dressed, respectable looking witch like Mrs Figg levitating the casket in front of her as she entered the Great Hall than a moth eaten Filch had been, shuffling in with his nose dripping on the casket as he carried it.

When Dumbledore levitated the goblet's plinth into a prominent position in front of the High Table dais and was about to remove the goblet from the casket to set it on the plinth where it would be lit Minerva cried out. " _ **Stop!**_ "

Dumbledore demanded to know what she was doing and she asked him what controls he'd put in place to ensure that no under age students' names could be entered into the tournament. He tried to fob her off with some platitude about putting an age line around the goblet and she muttered. "That's what I thought!"

With that she waved her wand to throw open the door beside the dais the High Table was on and levitate the plinth into the chamber there (well actually there was a bit of play acting involved there because she was too angry at that point to do much more than open the door smoothly so she went through the motions while Harry and the others did everything else, but it looked good).

When Dumbledore shouted "What do you think you're doing, you stupid witch?" angrily, the shocking amount of venom in Pomona Sprout's voice as she hissed "Watch your tongue, you conniving old bastard! That's Headmistress McGonagall to such as _you_!" at him was enough to make him stumble a few steps away from her, but luckily that gave Minerva enough time to gather herself.

She looked out over the students and asked. "Who here heard me telling Professor Dumbledore less than two months ago that I was holding him _personally_ responsible for ensuring that no under age students could be entered into this tournament?" Most of the Hogwarts students raised their wands.

"And who believes that a simple age line around the goblet out here in the Great Hall would be enough to stop under age students being entered into the tournament?" Over two thirds of the wands went down, but the fact that nearly a third of them were taking that stance was a worry, so she asked another question.

"Who did the research I suggested into the bloody history of the Triwizard Tournament?" The wands that had gone down went back up again and most of the ones that had stayed up went down. She shook her head in dismay, how was she to keep them alive long enough to become the witches and wizards they were meant to be if they risked their lives over things as pointless as this? She was a little more jaded as she turned back to Dumbledore.

" _That's_ why the goblet will not be sitting out here in the Great Hall ye daft bastard! It is our responsibility to protect our students until they've learned enough about the world to be able to look after themselves. Ye stupid age line would have probably seen a quarter of our students' names in that damned goblet and some wee bairn who dinna have a chance in your death trap of a tournament! Put your age line across the doorway into yon chamber. The Goblet will remain in tha' chamber and we will also ha' teachers stationed at the door to turn away those who are too young."

Olympe agreed wholeheartedly with that (though they both knew that they had to allow Fleur's entry to be put into the goblet), as did Peder.

Ivan Krum and some of the other Durmstrang students were the first names that went into the goblet as soon as the feast finished, so they were sure of three of the names that would be coming out of the Goblet the following night. Ivan Krum was a given for Durmstrang, as was Fleur for Beauxbatons and Harry for whatever fourth school he was entered for, they'd have to find what it was this time. The only school in question was Hogwarts, at least it couldn't be Cedric this time because he hadn't even started yet….

* * *

Fleur had to sit with the rest of the Beauxbatons delegation at the Ravenclaw table the next night, so it was actually a relief when the names started coming out of the goblet. Fleur's came out first, then Ivan's, but the Hogwarts champion was a surprise, because it was a Slytherin Fifth Year by the name of Merula Snyde and she obviously hadn't reached her age of majority yet. Minerva stood and asked. "May I ask how your name got into the Goblet Miss Snyde?"

They'd all been told that if your name came out of the Goblet you had to compete, so as no-one could stop her competing she stood and stated proudly. "A house elf Professor McGonagall. I had a house elf put my entry into the goblet because the restrictions wouldn't apply to them."

Minerva shook her head sadly. "That was clever Miss Snyde, I only hope that this tournament does not take you from us, because Britain is in dire need of witches and wizards who are capable of clever thinking like that… Proceed to the chamber with the other champions please."

Merula curtsied to her and proceeded to the chamber.

There wasn't much of a wait before the flames flared up again and another piece of parchment was spat out of the Goblet. There was no mistaking the smugness in his expression and voice as Dumbledore called out "Harry Potter" more loudly than he had the other names, and the fact that he hardly looked at the name made it clear that he'd been expecting it. Abbot shook his head in frustration, the old fool was going to give the whole game away!

Harry knew he had to put on a show so he stood up. "What's this? I didn't enter your stupid tournament! Surely I can't be made to compete in something I didn't enter myself into?"

It was time for Abbot to play his part so he stood up. "The rules are quite clear Mister Potter..."

" _Duke_ Potter!"

"What?"

"Didn't any of you people bother to learn the laws and protocols of your own country? It would appear that my Champion was correct when she pointed out your failings yesterday _Lord_ Abbot…. There are clear cut protocols and requirements for addressing your betters in our society and if you're going to try and drag me into your bloody death trap of a tournament you'll damned well comply with them! I am Duke Henry James Potter, Head of the Most Noble and Most Ancient House of Potter and its Associated Houses!... and if you fail to address me by my proper title again you will face my Champions! Do. You. Understand?"

The memory of watching one of those champions' actions the previous day made Abbot go white and he stammered. "Yes. Yes I understand Duke Potter!"

Harry nodded tersely. "Good! Now you were saying?"

"What?… Oh yes, I'm afraid the rules are quite clear Duke Potter, when your name comes out of the Goblet you are entered into a binding magical contract so you must compete until the end of the tournament or lose your life and magic…."

He was drowned out then by Peder, Olympe, Minerva and most of the Hogwarts staff, the Druids group and the rest of the students shouting. _**"What?"**_ , as that little titbit was something Dumbledore and the rest of the ones behind the tournament hadn't shared with anyone else.

By that stage Minerva had snatched the parchment off of Dumbledore and was examining it while everyone else was shouting. The only thing showing on the parchment initially was the name Harry Potter in someone else's handwriting, so she cast a spell to reveal whatever else was on it. She couldn't help snorting when the name of the school came up, because she had spoken to students' mothers who had attended the Glastonbury Witches Academy before it closed down sixty odd years ago, so she knew that its sole purpose was to train good housewitches.

She handed the parchment to Emma, who in turn passed it to Poppy to identify the blood used to seal it once she'd read what was written on it. Neither she nor Minerva were surprised when Poppy's choking sob confirmed that the blood was Harry's so he was locked into this thing, and Emma nodded regretfully to Harry where he was standing with Hermione and Luna crying in his arms.

* * *

Harry gently disengaged himself from the girls and stepped forward, raising one of his Heirloom daggers to set off a cannon blast loud enough to silence everyone in the Great Hall, then standing tall and proud he stated in a ringing voice that everyone could hear.

"I, Duke Henry James Potter, Head of the Most Noble and Most Ancient House of Potter and its Associated Houses, swear by my life and magic that I did not enter myself into the Triwizard Tournament or directly or indirectly request anyone else to enter me into this Tournament!"

There was a flash as the oath was accepted, and as he was well and truly pissed off at that point he decided to forego the customary "Lumos" to prove he still had his magic (for those idiots who'd missed that he'd sworn on his _life_ and magic), instead sending a blasting hex at the lectern Dumbledore was standing behind. The manipulative old bastard landed on his arse several paces away from where the lectern had been and Emma set off another cannon blast to get everyone's attention.

"Duke Potter's entry into this tournament without his knowledge or agreement by a party or parties unknown.." she turned to look at where Dumbledore was still sitting on the floor at that "is now the subject of a formal DMLE investigation. We have just been informed that if even if competing in the tournament doesn't kill him, _not_ competing in it will, so the penalty is clear cut when we find the ones responsible for this, _Death_! Under the Druids Law of Magical Britain, any attempt to take the life of the Head or Heir of a Most Ancient House or their betrothed carries an automatic death penalty, so there is no question what awaits those who ensured that Duke Potter was entered into this tournament…." She thought Harry and the other students could do with a little levity though. "But I dare say that Duke Potter will want to extract retribution for the insult of the school he was entered as attending first, as I have been told that the Glastonbury Witches Academy didn't provide anything but housewitch training, and it was closed over fifty years before he was born."

That got the desired laughs, from Harry and the girls as well she was glad to see, but apparently Abbot couldn't keep his mouth shut either. "Under who's authority have you claim to have started a DMLE investigation?"

He was shocked to get his answer from the Director of the DMLE, who he hadn't realised was now standing in the doorway of the Great Hall with a team of Aurors. " _ **H**_ _ **er own authority!**_ Countess Black was reinstated as a Senior Investigative Auror and Earl Black was reinstated as a Senior Auror before Duke Potter and the rest of their party came to Hogwarts because Headmistress McGonagall, the Hogwarts Board and other Senior Hogwarts staff were concerned about suspicious events, such as what happened at the Quidditch World Cup Final, cropping up around Magical Britain. It would appear that their concerns were well founded. Auror Black…. Countess Black, what do we know about how Duke Potter was entered into this tournament?"

Emma handed over the parchment and began her report. "After the three schools' champions' names had come out of the goblet, it lit up again and the name Harry Potter came out. Professor Dumbledore did not appear to be overly surprised by this. Duke Potter challenged this and said that he hadn't entered himself but _Lord_ Abbot stated that once your name came out of the goblet it was magically binding contract so if you did not compete until the end of the tournament you would lose your life and magic..."

" _ **What?"**_

Emma nodded grimly. "Yes Ma'am, that was the reaction of just about everyone in the Great Hall because the tournament organisers hadn't shared that with anyone else prior to the students being entered into the tournament. We examined the parchment used to enter Duke Potter but although the entry just says Harry Potter in someone else's handwriting and he's been entered for a housewitch school that closed over fifty years before he was born, Madam Pomfrey has confirmed that the blood used to seal the entry is in fact Duke Potter's so he is bound to compete, that is why Madam Pomfrey is looking so upset. Duke Potter swore an oath on his life and magic that he neither entered himself or directly or indirectly asked anyone else to enter him into the tournament… the lectern was his proof that he still had his magic."

Amelia glanced at the remains of the lectern and the old fool on his arse on the floor and put her head down to try and cover up the fact that she was struggling not to laugh at the old fool.

Emma looked at Harry and the girls and asked. "Director Bones… May I take Duke Potter and the rest of our students back to our tower please? It's been quite an upsetting night for them."

Amelia nodded. "Yes of course Countess Black, if we need to ask them any questions we will come to your tower."

Abbot piped up then. "But we haven't given the champions their instructions for the First task yet!"

Amelia just looked at him. "Well?"

He looked confused.

"Well give them their instructions then you fool!"

He was about to say that it had to be done in private but quickly changed his mind when she fixed him with the look that had rarely failed to get suspects talking.

"The First task is a test of Daring. Courage in the face of the unknown is an important quality for a wizard to have so that's all we're telling you!"

Amelia snorted. Idiot! "What about the witches?"

"What?"

"You've given them the _wizards'_ instructions for the first task, but in case it slipped your notice there are also two witches in this tournament, what about them?"

"Well… It's the same for the witches?"

Amelia shook her head at the idiot and looked at Emma, who nodded and led her party away.


	8. First Task

**There were a few relatively minor housekeeping changes in the previous chapter. I suddenly realised that I'd somehow forgotten that Durmstrang was supposedly in the far north of Europe so I've had the Ministry officials relating to Durmstrang coming from Magical Bulgaria. They're now from the Nordic Magical Congress, which covers the Nordic countries but is based in Norway. Durmstrang may be too, given the fact that they use a ship implies that they're located on the coast. I've also made a minor amendment from house to family for the French Noble families, though I'm staying with Noblesse Ancienne because that's what they're called in the reference material for French Noble families.**

 ** **Usual disclaimers, no rights to existing characters, this is not JKR's HP, the real world or a Disney Princess story and there will probably be a few changes in the first hour or so after it's posted because things invariably look different in the published version and I don't always like the way it came out.****

On the face of it Isabelle Perrot, the intelligent and controlled young witch who the French Ministry sent to replace Cyrille Lestrange VI, was a different kettle of fish to him, but they were never about to accept anything at face value in this world and it didn't take much digging to uncover the fact that Perrot was her married name, but she was in fact another Lestrange. She was just as much of a Pureblood bigot and just as determined to carry out the French and British Ministries' plan to destroy the Veela and Harry Potter in this tournament as he was, but she was apparently from one of the less inbred Lestrange bloodlines because she was what those who attended Hogwarts would have called the consummate Slytherin, using cunning and guile instead of charging in like an enraged Giant as her cousin had.

As promised, when Durmstrang's new Headmaster Ludvig Graf von Moltke (Durmstrang had traditionally been _the_ school of the Magical Nobles. This was quite possibly part of the reason the Noble families started pulling their children out of the school after Karkaroff became Headmaster, the comments about his practices were valid but the nobles wouldn't have liked their children being under a commoner's control.) arrived a week and a half after Halloween, the raised spirits of the Durmstrang delegation were plain to see. His arrival had the opposite effect on Dumbledore, Abbot and Perrot though, because Dumbledore and the British and French Ministries had been banking on Karkaroff's assistance to ensure that Harry and Fleur died in the tournament. Without Karkaroff, their ability to set these things up without being seen would be severely compromised.

Something else they tried to fight was the changes made to the judging panel. According to the tournament rules they had all been given, the judging panel was to be made up of the headmasters of the schools being represented and representatives of the Ministries responsible for the safety of the students of each school. The Triwizard Committee tried to argue that that was Dumbledore for Hogwarts, Graf von Moltke for Durmstrang, Madame Maxime for Beauxbatons and Abbot, Perrot and Baron _Brännvin_ _as_ the representatives of the British, French and Nordic Congress Ministries, and that was where they ran into trouble.

Minerva had Olympe, Peder and Ludvig's complete support when she argued that _she_ was the unquestioned Headmistress of Hogwarts, and once Dumbledore and the others had buckled and accepted the fact that they couldn't win that argument, that as Duke Potter had been forcibly entered into this tournament against his will by party or parties unknown, he must have equivalent representation on the judging panel. Dumbledore tried to rubbish that notion, saying that it would not be possible to find the witch who'd run the Glastonbury Witches Academy when it existed, and that the British Ministry was already represented on the judging panel but Minerva fixed him with a look.

"Yes, I do not doubt that _whoever_ entered Duke Potter into this tournament has ensured that the witch who owned and operated the Glastonbury Witches Academy cannot be found Professor Dumbledore…. I only hope that the poor woman hasn't been killed to do so…. but what we are referring to is _equivalent representation_ for Duke Potter. As such, I hereby move that Baroness Patricia Lupin, as the Head Tutor of record for the Druid's group that Duke Potter is part of, be added to the judging panel as his Headmistress, and Madam Amelia Bones be added as the Ministry official who has accepted responsibility for ensuring Duke Potter and the other students here at Hogwarts for the duration of the tournament's safety… this will also mean that she will be on hand to take charge if issues with any tournament events threaten the safety of the students and spectators present."

Peder quickly seconded the motion and proposed that it be put to the vote, so Patty and Amelia were locked in before Dumbledore and the others had a chance to come up with a valid argument to block the move. Unfortunately Dumbledore and the British and French equivalents of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Sports had the Triwizard Tournament Committee locked down and refused to share any information about what would be included in the tournament, the only other one they'd allowed onto the committee was Karkaroff and after he was arrested and executed they'd argued that all the planning had already been done so there was no valid reason to replace him.

* * *

Of course, they had Harry, Hermione and Luna's memories of the tournament from their time and they had established from the time they started at Hogwarts that their flight lessons, which were an on-going affair, were random flights over the Forbidden Forest. Minerva refused to order them to change or cancel their flying lessons without a valid reason to do so, and Dumbledore couldn't break himself out of the habit of insisting that people just had to accept that he knew best and do as he said without question.

Just before the dragons were due to arrive, the Triwizard Tournament Committee told the Judging Panel that flights over the Forbidden Forest _had_ to be banned because they would see what was being prepared for the first task, which in turn would mean that Potter and Delacour would have to be disqualified for cheating because they would have an unfair advantage over the other champions. Minerva looked Abbott in the eye and said. "You mean an unfair advantage like Albus Dumbledore hinting rather obviously to Miss Snyde that she needed to work out a way to get past a dragon weeks ago?" and Headmaster von Moltke cut in with "And Karkaroff having Ivan Krum trained to face dragons before our delegation had even left Durmstrang?"

That shocked the Triwizard Committee into silence, so Amelia didn't need to raise her voice as she said. "It is obvious that there has already been quite a bit of cheating going on in this tournament, and it's all been coming from the Triwizard Tournament Committee itself! I would like to formally commend Headmaster von Moltke's honesty and honour for bringing this to our attention as soon as he got the information out of Mister Krum's teacher. We held off saying anything about it, hoping that the Triwizard Committee would also do the honourable thing and come clean about their involvement in this cheating, but we gave up on any expectation of that happening when the monitoring wards picked up Professor Dumbledore telling another competitor about the dragons in confidence, so at that time we advised the remaining two competitors of what they would be facing…. By the way, it wasn't Headmistress Maxime or Baroness Lupin who advised their students of this so _they_ can't be accused of breaching the rules of the tournament which state that school staff are not allowed to assist their students in any way, but we have proof that both Karkaroff and Dumbledore _did_!" She fixed them with a look that had been making suspects crack for years. "All this information has been added to the evidence for the case that was started when Duke Potter was entered in the tournament against his will by party or parties _unknown_ , and don't think for a moment that the DMLE will allow any of it to be swept under the carpet. I strongly recommend that every representative of the Triwizard Committee makes damned sure that they don't do anything _else_ to add to the evidence against them…." She stopped at that and gave Dumbledore an evil smile. "After all, none of you have immunity from prosecution _now_."

When the dragons arrived, Dumbledore and others put up strong disillusionment and silencing wards over their holding area, so no-one else could see or hear what was going on in there. They already knew that there were four holding pens though, and one of them was much bigger than the others. What that said to Harry was that they would be the same four nesting mothers, and of course he would be getting the Horntail again. The way things were going though he didn't think Fleur would lucky enough to get the Welsh Green again, he was leaning towards her's being the Short-Snout this time as it was probably the most dangerous after the Horntail.

* * *

At that point, Harry had effectively been training to meet the Horntail again for three and a half years, so he thought he was as prepared as he was going to be. Fleur had also been training to make the best of her Veela ability to absorb fire and magical energy and practising with the Goblins' dragons for nearly six months so Apolline and Pandora were relatively confident of her getting through this without being seriously harmed. All in all, they should be better prepared for what they'd be facing than Krum or Snyde were.

They were also working on a plan to address another serious problem of Dumbledore's making, the Acromantula colony in the Forbidden Forest. Hagrid had tried to talk Aragog into agreeing to move his family off to an island where they wouldn't clash with humans and other magical creatures or better yet, back to where they came from, as they should be much happier in warmer climes, but he'd been lucky to get out of there with his life. Aragog had been just about ready to give in to his sons who were arguing that he had no reason to honour the promises he'd made to a half-human boy forty years ago by the time Hagrid beat a hasty retreat.

The thing was, there wasn't nearly enough food going into that dragon holding area to properly feed four nesting mothers, so it appeared fairly obvious that they were keeping them hungry, if not starving them, to try and make them more aggressive so they'd put on more of a show in the first task. This made their plan for the Acromantulas a simple one, as soon as the first task was done, they'd transport the dragons to the Acromantula colony and let them feast to their hearts' content. They would be allowed to feast for as long as they wanted to before they were transported back to their respective dragon reserves and after the dragons were done, the rest of the colony should be a lot easier to clean out.

Salazar's basilisk had been easier to deal with. They had gone down there, prepared to give it a chance if it could be reasoned with, but the compulsions Riddle had used to force it to bend to his will and the madness that Salazar had infected it with before he died meant that there was no chance of that. It had come racing up out of its lair inside the bust enraged because it could smell Goblins in the Chamber of Secrets, so it was met by a dozen enchanted Goblin silver spears that were thrust through its eyes into its brain as it exited the mouth of the giant bust of Salazar Slytherin, and at least four or five of those spears were used to channel blasting hexes into its brain. There were several injuries as humans and Goblins were knocked aside or crushed as the basilisk burst out of mouth of the bust, but it was the only one that died, and it was dead before it hit the floor of the chamber, it just didn't know it yet.

The basilisk's carcass, the Goblin silver doors of the chamber and the fortune in gold, silver and precious stones that had been stored in vaults hidden in the bust of Salazar were enough to make a noticeable increase to the fabulous Potter fortune, but the esoteric works in Salazar's private library and the Chamber of Secrets itself were worth more to Harry, Hermione and Luna. The girls were upset because there was something about the parseltongue talent that made it almost impossible for a non-parseltongue to comprehend the written form of parseltongue, so they had to wait for Harry to translate Salazar's journals and workbooks for them, but the Chamber itself was something they could spend a lifetime studying.

The Chamber of Secrets was almost as old as Hogwarts, though not the Roman Castrum that stood on the site before Hogwarts was built of course, and it had been located on the precise focal point for the intersecting ley lines that gave Hogwarts its power. Being separated from the focal point by a bit over a kilometre horizontally and a few hundred metres vertically hadn't been enough to prevent Hogwarts from becoming one of the most magically powerful locations in the magical world, but the power inside the Chamber of Secrets was incredible. This was the reason that Salazar's basilisk had grown to by far the biggest example anyone had ever heard of. They hadn't found too many practical uses for the power of the Chamber as yet, the biggest one so far was charging ward stones and power stones, but they had witches, wizards and goblins spending time there researching ways to make use of that power.

* * *

When the day of the First Task came, Harry made sure that they had their full Goblin guard in place around Hermione, Luna and the rest of the family. He also promised himself that he'd make Abbott pay for the deliberate slight he'd made against Fleur by looking straight at her as he said "Ladies First", and very obviously holding the bag out to Merula Snyde. Krum did win points with Harry though by insisting that Fleur draw her dragon next after Merula, because Abbot went to hold the bag out to him.… Obviously the Krums had been taught better manners than British so-called Nobles. Harry bowed to Ivan in recognition and appreciation of this act and then gave Abbott a look that made the bigger and older man involuntarily step back from the boy.

As expected, the dragons were the same as the other timeline, but some of the draws and order were different. Merula Snyde drew the Welsh Green, and was going first. Fleur drew the Swedish Short-Snout and was after Merula, Ivan drew the Chinese Fireball and was going third and of course Harry drew the Hungarian Horntail and was going last again. From what Harry could see, the other three had all been all nipped and rejected if they tried to draw a dragon other than the one they were intended to have, so he and Fleur at least would be handing theirs over to Auntie Ami to be tested right after the task because their blood had almost certainly been used to match them to specific dragons…. So much for drawing random dragons for the task!

* * *

Merula failed to get her egg because she was burnt too badly to continue, but luckily Poppy had her right as rain in a couple of days. They'd also confirmed that even a Welsh Green gets quite aggressive when it's hungry.

Fleur managed to put on a good enough show with the Short-Snout that from what Hermione and Luna were saying over their link, the dragon was treating her as a worthy opponent. Apparently dragons didn't like being hit in the face with Veela fireballs either and in the end the Short-Snout had moved far enough away from the eggs for her to pop in, grab the golden egg and pop away. The Short-Snout rushed back when she saw her near the eggs, but once she'd confirmed that her real eggs were there and unharmed (she'd ignored the false egg as some sort of rock), she settled down enough for the dragon handlers to get her stunned and remove her from the arena.

Everything went to pieces when Ivan Krum faced the Chinese Fireball though. Given the way that this tournament had been going, there was a good chance that the Triwizard Committee had been planning this from the start… To have Krum go before Harry and get his dragon so enraged that it set off the Horntail that Harry had to face, because there was no way a nesting Chinese Fireball that was half starved wouldn't go berserk when she was hit with the Conjunctivitis Curse by a human who was trying to get at her eggs. It was even worse than that though, because while she was stumbling around, trying to find and kill the human who did this to her, she'd trampled her own eggs and crushed half of them, and when she realised that, she started keening.

A keening dragon was a terrible sound, and they'd been keeping the Horntail conscious to make sure that she'd get worked up by the angry Fireball, so her keening set the Horntail right off. She was stunned and quickly pushed into the arena to be revived before the rage coursing through her body could wear off.

Harry knew that he was in trouble as soon as the Fireball's keening started, because that was sure to set the other mothers off. When they told him what had happened he swore at Krum, even though he knew deep down he couldn't lay the blame for this at _his_ feet, but he really was going to need to pull a rabbit out of the hat to succeed here…. Shit, he'd need to do that just to survive this! This had put paid to any ideas he'd had about trying to talk the Horntail down and reason with her, pointing out that they were both there against their will and he didn't want any harm to come to her or her eggs, so he sent Hermione, Luna, Dora and Hestia to the Chamber of Secrets.

Over the past year they'd discovered that he, Hermione and Luna could share magical energy with each other over their links, and the others could do something similar if they were in physical contact. The plan was to use a variation of what they used to charge the ward stones…. The four witches would go to the chamber, jam their Goblin silver Heirloom spears into the floor of the chamber to act as conduits and hang onto them, with Dora and Hestia holding Hermione and Luna's free arm or shoulder, then when Harry called for it, they'd push as much energy as they could to him over their links. Hopefully they would be able to give him enough energy to knock the Horntail out quickly so they could try to save the endangered Fireball and its eggs…. The bastards! Not only did they put the dragons' eggs at risk by bringing nesting mothers in from around the world to put on a show, they had to use an endangered species like the Chinese Fireball to add to the spectacle.

When he entered the arena, the Horntail was so enraged she almost snapped the chains holding her. Harry called for the girls to push the energy to him and when he felt that he couldn't take any more, he fired a massive two handed double stunner at the Horntail's head. They were pouring so much power into it that she was wobbling almost immediately and after about ten or fifteen seconds, she started to topple. Harry held the stunner until he was sure that she was going down and then released it, telling the girls to stop.

To make sure that the Triwizard Committee couldn't claim that he'd failed to complete the task because he didn't get his egg, he popped over to the Horntail's nest and picked up the golden egg that was sitting off to one side. Apparently there were no anti-banishing charms on the egg though, because when he threw it at where Abbott and Perrot were sitting in the judges' box, he must have unconsciously _pushed_ it so it not only reached the judges' box, it smashed right through it!

* * *

He didn't wait to see what happened though because he was popping away to the dragon holding area where the dragon handlers were trying to keep the Goblins away from the Fireball. He wasn't the only one arriving at that point and the dragon handlers went down in a barrage of stunners, which left the Goblins free to expand a Goblin Floo enough to pass the Fireball and her eggs through and she was sent to the Chamber of Secrets, they did the same with the Welsh Green and the Short-Snout, and the Horntail as well when she was brought back to the holding area.

The Goblins, Xeno and the ICW's dragon experts and creature healers were examining the damaged eggs and when they reported that the hatchlings were all still alive and should survive without any serious harm, everyone drew a sigh of relief. They still had the trickiest part to get through though, as they needed to revive the Fireball and hold her in a full body bind long enough for Harry to use his parseltongue to get through to her that while her hatchlings lived, there was too much damage to their eggs so they needed to be hatched before they were moved to survive. The Goblins had brought the rest of the dragons and their eggs to the Chamber by then, leaving a pile of stunned dragon handlers and very confused witches and wizards on the surface, and Harry had to go back to that.

* * *

When he returned to the Arena, Abbot and Perrot tried to get him arrested for attacking them, but Amelia pointed out that Harry had a much stronger case for having the organisers of the tournament arrested for trying to murder _him_ , what with the obviously rigged dragon draw and setting him up to have to deal with a hungry Horntail in a situation that had been engineered to make her more unpredictable and violent. Abbot tried to say that there was nothing to support any of those accusations, but he almost fainted when she told him that three of the four dragon tokens that had supposedly been randomly drawn had already been sent off for testing to confirm suspicions that they were blood keyed to individual 'champions'... The memory that Ivan Krum had freely given showed how he'd been coached on the best way to cast the Conjunctivitis Curse on a Fireball because that was supposedly the only way to get around those dragons, and that he'd been assured that he would have a clear run at the golden egg once he did that because the dragon would wander off trying to find him. They also had the testimony of the ICW's dragon experts who'd been monitoring the situation that the dragons used in the tournament had been underfed and tormented to make them more aggressive.

Abbott _did_ wet himself when Amelia added with an evil smile. "And do you _really_ want to aggravate someone who's just proven that he can stun a Hungarian Horntail _by himself_ Lord Abbott? I can assure you that _I_ wouldn't want someone that powerful angry at me! No…. I think that it would be best to forget all this talk about having people charged and award the competitors their scores so that they can go back to their dorms and relax, and try to put their life threatening experiences of today out of their minds, don't you?"

With the jibe about not wanting Harry angry at them fresh in their minds, Abbot and Perrot both gave Harry and Fleur tens (because when they thought about it, they didn't want a Veela who could get the better of a dragon angry at them either). With the other six judges giving them fair scores, the rankings after the First Task was clear, Harry was first with Fleur a little behind him, then Ivan a fair way behind Fleur and Merula coming in last because she had fared the worst against the easiest dragon.

* * *

They didn't head back to the Druids' Tower when they were released though, they returned to the Chamber. What followed was the tensest half hour of Harry's life, or anyone in the Chamber's lives actually, but Harry managed to get the Fireball to calm down enough to reach out to her hatchlings in the damaged eggs and confirm for herself that what he was telling her was true, they lived but they needed to be hatched _now_. That meant that they were able to release her to save her hatchlings and start reviving the other dragons the same way, because they also needed to be talked down before they could be safely released.

Back at the arena, Dumbledore, Abbott and Perrot were facing questions that they had no answers for, because the family had gone to the ICW's controlling bodies for Magical Creatures as soon as they had proof that they were shipping in four nesting mothers from around the world to be used in the tournament, and one of them was an endangered Chinese Fireball. The ICW had had people monitoring the situation at the tournament, so they knew that the dragons were not being fed properly either. That was how they managed to get the ICW's creature healers in quick enough to help with the Fireball's eggs, the ICW's dragon experts on site had called them in. The ICW's dragon experts had also approved the idea of giving the dragons free rein to clear out the illegal Acromantula colony in the Forbidden Forest, because the feast would help address them being half starved for a few weeks and being able to hunt the Acromantulas through the tunnels in their colony would be good for them.

The Triwizard Committee and the Ministries who had been involved in pressuring the dragon reserves into supplying the nesting mothers and withholding food to make them hungry and aggressive weren't at all happy about the penalties and sanctions that the ICW hit them with for this... Especially when aside from a few of the dragon handlers who would never work with dragons again because they'd done whatever the Committee asked to their charges, the dragon reserves were not only spared penalties, they now had the ICW watching over them to prevent any recurrence of Ministry interference.

Harry's parseltongue ability made it a simple matter to get the dragons to go after the Acromantulas, all he had to do was explain to them about the Acromantula colony and get their eager agreement. So once the Fireball's damaged eggs had been hatched, they all left their eggs in the chamber where they would be safe and were transported to the colony by Goblin Floo.

The smell and sound of the Acromantulas being roasted alive and eaten by the dragons left many of the witches and wizards who were stationed around the colony to contain any Acromantulas that tried to escape shaking and retching, but the carnage subsided after the first hour and by the time the dragons were sated and ready to depart a few hours later, there weren't any Acromantulas left alive over collie size. The family had assembled every witch and wizard they knew (except Dumbledore) who could control Fiendfyre, and once the engorged dragons had waddled out of the colony's lair and been returned to their eggs in the chamber and any remaining Acromantulas and egg caches that could be found had been destroyed, Fiendfyre was cast into every tunnel and opening into the colony's lair.

The witches and wizards were cancelling their Fiendfyre and getting out of the way as they grew too tired to hold it any longer, but by the time they were done the colony was completely burnt out, to the point that the surface above it had subsided as its tunnels and caverns collapsed. There was no doubt that the Forbidden Forest's Acromantula colony had been completely destroyed, and they were so spent that most of them were surprised when a fanfare of horns suddenly announced that the Forest's centaurs had come to witness and celebrate this momentous event.

Once they were done there, the family returned to the Chamber of Secrets and with Harry's assistance, the ICW's dragon experts checked over the dragons and the Fireball's hatchlings to confirm that they were all in good health. With that, the ICW dragon experts accompanied the dragons back to their dragon reserves to ensure that they got settled in OK... Though Harry had to promise the dragons, especially the Fireball, that he would visit them. He _also_ had to promise the ICW that he'd visit the other dragon reserves and help settle the dragons down there too.


	9. Davy Jones' Locker

****Usual disclaimers, no rights to existing characters, this is not JKR's HP, the real world or a Disney Princess story and there will probably be a few changes in the first hour or so after it's posted because things invariably look different in the published version and I don't always like the way it came out.****

Harry's egg with the clue for the Second Task had been blasted out of existence because no-one could stand its horrendous screeching when it was smashed open going through the judges' box after he competed the First Task, but he wasn't too worried because he was banking on the fact that every 'Champion' would get the same clue again so he could use Fleur's. They found that they didn't even need Fleur's egg though, because the clue was _exactly_ the same as it had been in the other timeline.

Even if she was an arrogant little Pureblood bitch, they didn't want to see Merula Snyde or her hostage die needlessly though, so Dora passed a piece of parchment to her in class that Harry had written the clue on. Unfortunately, surrounding himself with the most exceptional people in the Magical world had made Harry forget the maxim that applied to this world… 'There's nothing common about common sense'…. Or perhaps 'You can't fix stupid' or the variation of 'You can lead a horse to water but you can't make it drink' that often came to mind when he was exasperated with these people…..'You can lead a whore to knowledge but you can't make her think' were more applicable, because he'd believed that handing her the clue would have been enough to at least get her pointed in the right direction to work out what she'd need to survive, if not succeed, in the Second Task. What they were hearing from Snyde and the people she was turning to for help though was increasingly ridiculous theories that had less and less to do with what the clue actually said.

In the end Harry got so frustrated that he stormed across the Great Hall to shout in her face. "What is it with you people? Are you _incapable_ of thinking? The clue means that you will have an hour to rescue something, or more to the point _someone_..." At that he turned to send a look Dumbledore's way that promised bloody retribution if any hostages ended up at the bottom of Black lake in this task this time. "you care about from the Merpeople's village at the bottom of Black Lake!"

She just stared at him. "What? How could you know that? Any why would you tell me? I'm your competition in the tournament."

"I know it because unlike you, _we_ actually took the time to sit down to work out what the clue that we passed on to you so everyone in this stupid thing will have the information they need to face it meant, instead of just tossing out any and all crazy ideas that came into our heads. I'm telling you because unlike the organisers of this death trap I was dragged into against my will, _I_ don't want to see anyone die needlessly, not even a stupid, arrogant little bitch like you! And competition? Please! Even if I _did_ have any interest in doing anything more than surviving this stupid bloody tournament…. Have you forgotten that You're. Dead. Last? Didn't you get the point when you almost died in the First Task going up against the easiest dragon that you're way out of your depth in this thing? Look... find a way to breathe underwater for an hour and fight off the creatures you'll find in Black lake and if you're lucky you, and whatever poor fool they put down there for you to save if they're actually stupid enough to try that, _might_ have some chance of surviving this."

With that he turned and stormed off, the ones at the High Table catching his eye as he did so. Dumbledore was looking angry because he'd just told everyone in the Great Hall what was planned for the Second Task, but the main emotion he was showing was terror at the prospect of what that look had promised if they went ahead with their plans to kidnap people important to the champions to use as hostages to be rescued from the bottom of Black Lake…... Peder, Ludvig and Olympe were nodding approvingly at him for doing this to try and make sure the silly girl knew what was in front of her….. and Minerva and Julius Selwyn, Slytherin's House Master, were looking grateful that he'd made the effort to give that stupid little witch a chance because they felt responsible for her as their student.

He also heard someone at the Slytherin table behind him saying "He's right! If you actually read this, that's _exactly_ what it's saying!", but what he missed was Ivan Krum looking furious, because while he'd been trained to retrieve something from the bottom of the lake, Karkaroff had _never_ said anything about it being a person who was important to him, and Dumbledore's reaction to the look Duke Potter shot at him was telling him that this was _exactly_ what they were planning.

* * *

He was grateful to Duke Potter for uncovering this, and decided to try and do his part to convince the tournament's organisers that going through with that plan would be a _very_ bad idea, so he stood and walked to the High Table.

"Headmaster von Moltke."

"Yes, Mister Krum?"

"The statement Duke Potter just made was a revelation to me Headmaster, and after re examining the clue given for the Second Task…. I find myself being forced to agree with his view that the organisers' intention is in fact to place _someone_ important to us at the bottom of Black Lake to be rescued in this task..."

Ludvig nodded, interested to see where Ivan was going with this. "I have not seen this clue myself Mister Krum, but presuming that you are correct, is there a particular reason for bringing this to my attention?"

Ivan nodded curtly. "Yes Headmaster. As you may be aware, the branch of the Krum Family that I recently became head of as a result of my father's death is not one of Noble branches of the family, but where we can prove that we have a valid reason to do so, the heads of _every_ branch of the Krum family have the authority to declare blood feuds on behalf of the entire Krum Family. Therefore I hereby swear an oath that if any living person is used for what I must recover from the bottom of Black Lake for the Second Task of the Triwizard Tournament, this will be taken as an attack against the Krum Family and therefore the Krum Family will be formally declaring blood feuds against each and every member of the Triwizard Tournament Committee who were responsible for organising this tournament!"

Ludvig nodded solemnly. "Your terms for declaring blood feuds against members of the Triwizard Tournament Committee have been noted and accepted Mister Krum..." He turned to look at Dumbledore. "Professor Dumbledore, as the only member of the Triwizard Tournament Committee actually present, do you have any response to the terms that Mister Krum has stated?"

"What? No! He can't do that! He has no grounds to declare a blood feud on us!"

"I can see that your removal as the Chief Warlock of Magical Britain's Wizengamot and Supreme Mugwump of the International Confederation of Wizards was justified if you are this ignorant of the traditional laws of the Magical World Professor Dumbledore…. For a start, Mister Krum has _not_ declared a blood feud at this time, he has merely stated the terms and conditions that will result in the Krum Family determining that they have been attacked, which will in turn result in the Krum Family declaring blood feuds against the members of the Triwizard Tournament Committee who were responsible for organising this tournament. Some may try to argue that this definition should be restricted to members of the Krum Family and their betrothed, but my understanding is that Mister Krum is taking the position that he would be honour bound to risk his life to do whatever necessary to try and rescue _any_ person who may be placed at the bottom of Black Lake to be used as his hostage, and therefore he would be put at greater risk if a hostage was used in this task?"

He looked at Ivan and he nodded. "Yes Headmaster."

Ludvig nodded again. "On that basis I find these terms and conditions reasonable and justified…"

He looked at Peder. "Do you concur with my interpretation of this issue subject Lord Brännvin? _"_

Peder nodded. "Yes Headmaster von Moltke. It is my understanding that Mister Krum's life would be placed at greater risk as he would believe himself to be honour bound to do everything in his power to try and rescue any hostage he was responsible for being placed at the bottom of Black Lake in the Second Task of the Triwizard Tournament, even more so if the hostage was a family member or loved one, and I am confident that any court in Magical Europe would accept that the Krum Family had valid grounds for declaring blood feuds against the organisers of the Triwizard Tournament…. Especially given the tournament organisers' demonstrated willingness to ignore the safety of the competitors and other parties purely to put on more of a show in the First Task of the tournament….. and for that matter I dare say that the Potter and Delacour Families would most likely be declaring similar blood feuds against them on the same grounds."

Sirius called out "And the Black Family as well!", and Peder caught Harry's feral grin and nod of thanks for throwing that little titbit in to stir the pot out of the corner of his eye.

Ludvig had caught all that but schooled his expression as he went on. "Those are valid points Lord Brännvin, Lord Black….. Professor Dumbledore, I would strongly recommend that you and the other members of the Triwizard Tournament Committee seek proper legal advice on this matter, because the indications are that any attempt to use hostages in the Second Task of the Triwizard Tournament would result in multiple blood feuds being declared against every one of you by some of the most powerful families in the Magical world.…And as you are apparently unaware of much of the significant history of the Magical World, I feel compelled to point out to you that the Krum family that Mister Krum is part of are the most powerful family in Magical Bulgaria, as they are descended from one of the most famous rulers of Bulgaria."

Those with a strong sense of smell could tell that Dumbledore had just wet himself, and that it was only the charms on his robes that prevented him making a spectacle of himself as he hastily excused himself and hurried out of the Great Hall. Sirius was put out that he couldn't get anyone to take his wager that Dumbledore would be on his knees desperately making Floo calls the moment he reached his office, but he wasn't that surprised, because it was too easy a call.

* * *

A few days after the announcement that the Ministry would be holding a Yule Ball at Hogwarts for the Triwizard Tournament, their breakfast in the Great Hall was interrupted by shouting, and when they looked to see what the disturbance was, they saw Ivan Krum looking as though he wanted to hex the Hogwarts and Beauxbatons witches he was shouting at into oblivion. As he stomped past them furiously, Harry called out to him in Bulgarian. " _Ivan Krum, would you care to join us?_ "

Ivan stopped and looked at him, miles away, then nodded curtly and came to sit across the table where a space had been made for him. " _I could not help noting that you were angry Mister Krum, is this something that we can assist you with?_ "

Krum shook his head angrily and then remembered who was talking to him. " _I apologise for my lack of manners Duke Potter, it is just…_." he slumped " _These witches have no shame! What they are offering to do, to let me do to them if I chose them to take to this Ball… It is disgusting! I would **never** dishonour my betrothed by doing anything like that with any of those harlots!_"

Just then, something else caught Harry's eye, Merula Snyde looking very uncomfortable as a Seventh Year Slytherin wizard was leaning very close to speak to her. He remembered how the hostages had been selected last time, and a solution came to mind that could be good for both of them so he asked Dora, as her classmate, to see if she could get Merula to come over and join them.

Merula didn't take much convincing, she would have agreed to just about anything that would have gotten her away from those wizards who were making it quite clear what they would be expecting from her after they escorted her to the Ball, and a couple of minutes later, she was sitting beside Ivan. Harry addressed her.

"Miss Synde, I apologise for interrupting your breakfast, and forgive me if I am presuming too much, but would I be incorrect in believing that you are receiving inappropriate suggestions from the wizards who are offering to escort you to the Yule Ball?"

She was obviously about to deny that, as Slytherin business wasn't to be discussed outside their house, but then she slumped and nodded. "Most of them aren't actually saying it, but they're making it _quite_ clear what they're expecting, yes."

Harry looked at Ivan, who nodded as he cottoned onto what Harry was doing here. "Mister Krum is having a similar problem with witches who are making very inappropriate offers to him in an attempt to get him to take them to the Ball, but he refuses to dishonour his betrothed by agreeing to what any of those witches are offering him. Seeing how uncomfortable both of you have been made by these witches and wizards, it occurred to me that the solution that Baroness Delacour and I have come up with may suit the two of you as well, as we are going to the Ball as each other's official dates. Our situation is a little different from your's of course, with our being betrothed, but I have other betrothed who I will be sharing my time with at the Ball as well, so this just means that we will share the opening dance required of the champions and after that we will be spending the rest of the Ball with our friends, who I invite the two of you to join as well."

Neither Ivan or Merula were idiots, and they could easily see the benefits of this suggestion. Ivan caught her eye and she have a hesitant nod, so her turned to her and asked in a voice that carried across the Great Hall. "Miss Snyde, vould you do me the honour of allowing me to escort you to the Yule Ball being held for the Triwizard Tournament?"

She made sure her answer was heard as well. "I would be delighted to accompany you to the Yule Ball Mister Krum, thank you."

They both turned back to give Harry grateful looks before Ivan escorted Merula back to their normal spot at the Slytherin table. No-one could really argue that they would be better dates to the Ball than their fellow champions, so this effectively got the heat off both of them.

What Harry didn't mention was that he'd already told Abbot that _everyone_ from the Druids Tower would be attending the Ball with their guests, and that they'd be sharing a group of tables together where their guards could protect them from attacks. Abbott tried to say that only the Champions had an exemption from the Ball's restriction to Fourth Year and older students and Harry shrugged. "Then you won't have half of your Champions at your stupid Ball, because Baroness Delacour and I will not be attending without the rest of our family!"

Abbott started to puff himself up and say that they'd do what they were told or else but Minerva laughed at him. "Or else what, you fool? Duke Potter only agreed to attend this ball because he didn't want many of the other students to miss out on would be a rare chance for them to attend a function like this. He can quite easily change back to going to the family party that he'd much rather be at if you try to push him at all….. And I can assure you that I will take great pleasure in informing Minister Bagnold just who was responsible for the Ball she is trying to use to improve her image losing half of its special guests if that happens!"

Merula publicly accepting Ivan's offer to escort her to the Ball put an end to both of them being hounded by the opposite sex to be their partner to the Ball, so things settled down a little after that.

Abbott was told in no uncertain terms by Bagnold what would happen to him if Potter and Delacour weren't at the Ball because of his bloody minded pettiness, so arrangements were made for the corner of the Great Hall near the High Table dais to be reserved for the Druids Group and their guests. Harry and the others had a good laugh about what the Ministry's reaction was going to be when all four Champions deserted the Head table for the Druids corner as soon as their official duties to open the Ball had been completed.

* * *

As they led the crowd into the Great Hall, Harry shared the fact with Hermione and Luna that either Abbott had decided that if the Druids Group could bring younger children to the Ball, so could he, or they were making another attempt to use Sue to worm their way into the group, because Abbott's nine year old daughter Hannah was there with him. Hannah had been Sue's closest friend up until the children of the Most Ancient Houses started preparing themselves to face the Magical world, so she was one of the 'Traditional' Houses' best bets to get an outsider into their group.

They'd been half expecting something like this, because Abbot had had Hannah tutored in magic over the past year so she that could be enrolled early at Hogwarts, but at best she was struggling with the First Year classes so she had no chance of getting into the advanced Second (and Third Year after they tested out of Second Year) classes that Sue was in and they had nothing in common to talk about any more. Daphne's best friend Tracey Davis had also started at Hogwarts early, but Tracey had had enough intelligence and magical ability to test out of First Year and join the Druid Group's classes (and had been moved into the tower because even with the changes to the wards it still wasn't safe for a girl without any support to be in the Slytherin dorms when she was siding with the Druids).

Luckily, the Champions' waltz to open the Ball was right at the start, so they managed to avoid having to suffer inane small talk with the Ministry people at the Head Table by heading straight to the tables in the Druids Corner after their dance finished. Xeno and Hagrid (the current Care of Magical Creatures Professor and his Assistant Professor), Pandora, Olympe and Filius soon joined them because of the bile those Pureblood bigots were spewing, which made very obvious gaps at the Head Table. The Ministry idiots like the Minister's Undersecretary were making sure their comments were heard by half the people in the Great Hall and Luna finally reached her breaking point while she was dancing with Harry near the Head Table.

She suddenly whipped out her Heirloom dagger and sent coloured sparks at Umbridge as she cried out "Forma vero revelare!", then stopped, cocking her head in confusion. "Oh I'm sorry Miss Umbitch, from what Daddy, I mean Professor Lovegood, told me about them I was certain that you were an Each Annis, a variant of the Each Uisge….. But he said that the Each Annis' true form was a toad beast, not a hag?"

She turned to look at Xeno, who struggled to keep a straight face as he replied. "Yes that's correct Moonbeam, but didn't I also tell you that the Each Annis are believed to be extinct?"

"Oh yes! I forgot about that…. Sorry Miss Umbitch."

By this stage, Umbridge was on her feet, screeching something about about 'Filthy Beasts!' and Harry was watching her closely. He pulled Luna out of the way of the first " _ **Crucio!**_ " Umbridge threw at her, but someone else behind them wasn't as quick because they screamed when they were hit by it, luckily she was such a weak witch that even in her rage the curse didn't have that much power. Harry had his Heirloom dagger in his hand when she tried to follow the Crucio with a Confrigo! and batted it back into her.

Harry kept the dagger in his hand and his eye on the Ministry people as he called out. "Mistress Pomfrey?"

Poppy paused as she hurried towards the witch now sprawled on the floor. "Yes Duke Potter?"

"We need that creature to be kept alive until judgement has been made on it, I will not countenance it being allowed to expire as a comfort prior to that."

Poppy nodded, saying "Yes Duke Potter." before she resumed hurrying towards her patient.

"Countess Black?"

"Yes My Lord?"

"Is my understanding that, as the Ministry of Magic is responsible for that creature's presence at this Ball…. They can be required to make reparations as well as it correct? And my understanding that after casting both the unforgivable torture curse and the blasting curse at the Head of one Noble and Most Ancient House, the Heir to another and betrothed to the Head of two more, there can be no question that under Druids Law the Umbitch creature must be put to death?"

"You are mostly correct My Lord. The Ministry's records show that her name is Miss Delores Umbridge, not Umbitch. All appearances aside, she is reportedly a human witch, a half blood like yourself and the last known member of the common Umbridge family but other than that, yes. As Miss Umbridge was representing the Ministry of Magic in her official capacity at this Ball, they can legally be held responsible for her actions here and be made to make reparations for them… And there is no question that casting both the unforgivable torture curse and blasting curse at Countess Hufflepuff was an attempt on her life and therefore under Druids Law she must be put to death. Reparations will also have to be made to Laird Weasley, Heir to the Noble and Most Ancient House of Weasley, who was hit by the torture curse Miss Umbridge cast when you pulled Countess Hufflepuff out of its path and he shielded his companion from it."

Harry had forgotten all about the person who had been hit by the torture curse in Luna's stead and turned to Bill but Bill waved away the apology he was trying to make. The potions to calm the effects of the torture curse had been immediately called and administered and were starting to work so he managed to get out. "N.. n… no H… Ha… Harry. Y… you di... did th… the r… right th… thing pu... pu… pulling Lu…. Luna out of the w… way of th… that curse. I wa… wasn't fast enough t… to pull Angie out of the way so I go… got in front of her..."

Patty made him shut up at then because struggling to talk like that was interfering with the potions' effectiveness, but she looked up at Harry.

"He's right Harry, you did the right thing, pulling Luna out of its path, just as he thought he was doing the right thing, shielding Angie from it, even though she'll be telling him off for doing that when he's better."

That got a laugh from everyone who knew Angie as they knew that she was right about that. At the moment Angie was on her knees beside Bill, doing what she could to help him, but once he'd recovered enough there was no question that she'd be giving him a talking to about interfering with her doing her duty, which included protecting _him_ , as one of the students in their group at Hogwarts.

Harry's expression hardened as he turned back to the Head Table. "Very well, under Druids Law, what is required here is clear. Everything belonging to Delores Umbridge will be forfeited to Noble and Most Ancient Houses of Hufflepuff and Weasley and Delores Umbridge will be put through the Veil of Death immediately. With Countess Hufflepuff's permission, I call for Delores Umbridge's position as Senior Undersecretary to the Minister for Magic at the Ministry of Magic to be forfeited to Baron Arthurus Weasley, Head of the Noble and Most Ancient House of Weasley, who is currently employed as the Head of the Department of Magical Accidents and Catastrophes in the Department of Magical Law Enforcement?..."

Luna nodded. "I agree with this position being given to Baron Arthurus Weasley."

"And we will forego additional monetary penalties which may seriously interfere with the operations of the Ministry of Magic _if_ the role of Head of the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures is forfeited, effective immediately, to Baronet Amos Diggory, Head of the Minor House of Diggory."

That confused Bagnold, Dumbledore and just about everyone else who thought they knew the way things worked, because most people believed Diggory to be a bombastic fool who was a dyed in the wool Dumbledore supporter. Bagnold jumped to formally accept the forfeiture of the role of Head of the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures to Amos Diggory though, because she'd caught the inference that the threatened monetary penalties would be quite likely large enough to cripple the Ministry.

The Stone that was used when the Great Hall was the original court of Magical Britain still existed, it was just out of phase with the normal world, so it blazed into existence behind the tables in the Druids Corner as soon as there was a use for it to accept the penalties under Druids Law. That was another shock for Bagnold and most of the others, because most of Magical Britain ignored anything that pre-dated their own families (or themselves to a large degree), so they hadn't known that the Great Hall was in fact the original court. Bagnold had been banking on being able to quietly reshuffle the Department before it was handed over to Diggory, but she couldn't get out of doing this here and now after Harry had stipulated 'effective immediately' when he called for the forfeiture of the position, so Harry placed his hands on the Stone and repeated his requirements under Druids Law, and then Bagnold accepted the forfeiture of the position on behalf of the Ministry of Magic.

Those who hadn't been in Wizengamot sessions where the Stone was used were surprised when its voice rang out to confirm the list of irrevocable actions under Druids Law. The fact that Druids Law could not be overridden by Wizengamot Law was explained to those who didn't know that much about the history of Magical Britain, and that in turn prompted discussion among the Ravenclaws present as to the true origins of the term 'Laws that are set in stone'. Until now, they'd accepted the usual interpretation of them being recorded on stone tablets, but this stone was used as a direct interface with the magical laws, which put that interpretation into question.

* * *

Of course, as soon as they were back in the privacy of the Druids Tower and they were sure that Bill would be OK most of the family burst into laughter.

"Forma vero revelare? _That_ was the best you could come up with Luna?"

"What? Reveal true form _would_ be the valid incantation for showing what she really was!"

"OK, but making up the Each Annis and saying 'But he said that the Each Annis' true form was a toad beast, not a hag' was a bit much, don't you think?"

Luna shrugged. "The bitch was pissing me off with all her stupid ranting about how creatures like us shouldn't be allowed to mix with _proper_ witches and wizards. There was no way _she_ could ever be mistaken for an Each Uisge, even if there _was_ a female form for them, because the description of its human form is a _handsome_ man, so I just used the Each Uisge as a basis for a mash up of the Eachy and the Black Annis..."

She turned to Bill. "I'm so sorry Bill, I never mean for you to get hurt, if she'd tried something lethal on the first cast Harry would have stopped her then."

Bill was still having trouble talking normally so he just waved her apology away, being hit with a relatively weak torture curse was worth it for what they'd gotten out of the incident, and getting the Department of Magical Creatures as well as Umbridge's Undersecretary position out of Bagnold's control had been a major bonus.

What most people didn't know was that they had shown Amos Diggory proof of the price his family had paid for his blind devotion to Albus Dumbledore in the other timeline. Amos wasn't a fool, in fact he was quite intelligent and had a great deal of integrity to boot, it was just that his loyalty and overblown pride in the accomplishments of those close to him was normally all most people saw. They'd been working with Amos to ultimately get the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures out of Bagnold's minions' control and impose the same oaths as what the DMLE and International Cooperation staff had had to take on everyone in Magical Creatures, but Bagnold had given them an opportunity they couldn't pass up when she had that foul hag attend the Ball in her official capacity as the Undersecretary to the Minister for Magic, and Harry had jumped at the chance to move up the timetable.

* * *

This didn't change the Second Task of the Tournament much, as Dumbledore and the others on the Triwizard Committee had already dropped their plans to kidnap hostages for the Champions to rescue and negotiated with the four families to acquire objects that were important to the Champions that would be retrieved. They'd also made sure that the instructions given to the Merpeople were to put on a show of threatening and intimidating, but not actually attacking, the Champions, because they'd remembered about the automatic death sentence for any attempts against the lives of the Heads and Heirs of the Most Ancient Houses and their Betrothed, which applied to the ones that they really wanted to get rid of, Potter and Delacour.

While some of the committee knew that a number of Kelpies had been introduced into Black Lake (or more accurately Loch Dubh) for this, they were sure that that couldn't be traced back to them, and _none_ of them knew about the wizards who had been hired to use Mermen's tridents to kill Potter and Delacour, and anyone else who saw anything they shouldn't down there. Using the Mermen's tridents would put the blame on the Merpeople, and if they were questioned about it, the instructions given had been to intimidate but not attack, so that couldn't come back to the people behind it.

As they were standing on the dock on the shore of Black Lake waiting for the task to start on that cold morning in February, Harry couldn't help quietly singing along to the song that was going through his head, Otis Redding's Sittin' on the Dock of the Bay, which led to the others asking him what it was because they liked it. He laughed when he realised that he'd actually been singing it and explained that it was a song from the non-magical world, promising to play it for them after this was over.

They were all relatively comfortable that they were ready for this, Ivan assured them that he had a solution that would work for longer than the time they'd have to be under the lake, and Merula had come to apologise to Harry after some of her House mates pounded a few home truths into her head about what he'd said in the Great Hall, so they'd put her onto the use of Gillyweed when she found that she couldn't hold a bubblehead charm for long enough to use down there. Fleur had also loaned her the original impervioused leather suit and flying helmet that they'd used to create the templates to make her dragonskin ones from as they wouldn't get waterlogged and hold her back down there and the leather could be magically adjusted to her size to make them to work for her. Harry was using his metamorphmagus ability to turn himself into a Merman for this and while she'd need to take more along with her because her Veela blood meant it didn't work as long for her as it did for most humans, Gillyweed worked well enough for Fleur to make it a better solution than bubblehead charms as well. Harry had had dragonskin robes made for him that were cut to allow his tail enough movement to swim effectively (though Hermione and Luna had fun winding him up about having to go commando under the robes so that he could transform) and a dragonskin hat based on the early pilots' flying helmets. Fleur had the dragonskin suit that left her gills and webbed hands and feet free and gave her plenty of freedom of movement, and flying helmet like his. This meant that for the most part they would be protected against physical or magical attacks and the dragonskin was slick enough to reduce their drag through the water.

Fleur would be weaker down there because the Veelas' powers were Air and Fire oriented, so being underwater took away from them, and there was always a chance that the Merpeople had been told that she was a Veela, as the Veela and Merpeople were ancient enemies. It was a feud that had begun back in Ancient Greece and no-one knew the reason for it any more (though Hermione had a theory that it was because the Merpeople were actually mutated throwbacks of the water sirens and therefore hated all sirens, be they water or air), but it often led to friction and violence when Veela and Merpeople came together, so it was quite likely that the other side would have told the Merpeople about Fleur being a Veela to stack the deck against her.

They had both confirmed that they could cast the type of spells they'd need in the forms they were using for the task, but as Fleur lost a lot of her power underwater, Harry would be staying with her as long as they were under the lake to protect her. They would also have some of their people in ships' boats covering them down there. Their ships' boats had the same capabilities to travel underwater and be magically armed, armoured and disillusioned as their magical pirate ships (one of which, the Garuda, would _also_ be down there, but further off to avoid being discovered), and they would be staying just close enough to keep an eye on them. If nothing happened, no-one else would ever know that they had been down there, but if Harry or Fleur were attacked they'd be coming in at full speed, throwing everything they had at their attackers.

* * *

When Bagman set off the cannon blast to start the task, everyone but Harry threw off their robes and Ivan jumped into the water and transformed his head and shoulders into a shark's head. Seeing that, Harry thought that he would have been better off talking to them about what he had planned, as while that would allow him to breathe underwater, aside from reducing the drag in the water a fraction it did nothing to help him move down there. Fleur and Merula swallowed the Gillyweed and then jumped into the water to be ready when their gills and webbed hands and feet grew and Harry jumped in with them, transforming into a Merman when he did so.

Ivan finished his transformation and took off first, knowing where he had to go because they had shared the location of the Merpeople's village. The others left together, but Harry and Fleur soon left Merula behind because she hadn't been training for this for over four years in real time like Harry had, or even a year or so like Fleur had. It didn't take them long to pass Ivan either, but they expected that Merula would stay with him after she caught up with him if she had any sense, because he was more powerful than she was, even if he was slower through the water.

They saw a couple of Kelpies on the way to the Merpeople's village, but the Reductos that Harry cast their way convinced them that these smaller creatures were more trouble than they were worth. Harry's form caused quite a bit of confusion among the Merpeople when they arrived to collect the items they were supposed to retrieve. They could tell that he wasn't a Merman of course, but they could also tell that he was one hell of a lot closer to a Merman than they would have ever believed a human could become. As a result, they weren't threatened as they were supposed to be, but Harry had to waste time answering their questions. The Mermen were so focussed on Harry that they didn't notice that Fleur had cut his item to be retrieved free for him until she handed it to Harry. In the end, the only way that Harry could get away was to promise to come back and talk to them after the task was finished, and they missed Fleur swallowing more Gillyweed to make sure that she could get back to the shore without the effects failing before they got there.

Their would-be wizard assassins struck on their way back to the shore. Only about half of them struck at first, because they thought for some reason the Veela was being escorted by a Merman (the bubblehead charm does nothing to improve the user's underwater vision like the Gillyweed and other transformations do, and nor does trying to stay out of sight in the weed beds), but the others joined the attack when they realised that the supposed Merman was casting spells at the attacking wizards. What they didn't work out until it was too late was that at least half of the spells hitting them weren't coming from the two figures they were attacking.

Between the powerful 'Stupefies' and 'Reductos' that they were being hit with from Harry, Fleur and the four ships' boats, the would-be assassins were all out of action in less than a minute. Harry and Fleur had allowed themselves to be lulled into a sense of false security by how well it had gone up to that point and they hadn't kept as much distance between themselves and the weed beds as they should, something Harry knew that Uncle Alastor would be taking him to task for when he had the chance. This meant that when the would-be assassins burst out of the weed beds, they were on them in ten or fifteen seconds, but Harry's daggers and Fleur's wand were out and they were casting in the blink of an eye when they saw them, and they had an advantage in that their attackers couldn't use magic against them as that would leave a trace which would expose the fiction of their being attacked and killed by rogue Mermen _._

As soon as the danger to Harry and Fleur was gone, their attackers and the tridents they'd been carrying were all summoned into the boats, because their bubblehead charms had of course failed when they were stunned or knocked unconscious by the explosions in the water near them and they couldn't afford to let them drown, they needed them to identify who had hired them to the DMLE before they died.

* * *

Amelia had a visible Auror presence at the Second Task, and even more Aurors who were dressed in the casual robes to hide their presence. She'd been watching Harry and Fleur's progress on the mirror that was linked to another mirror on one of the boats had been shadowing them, so she demanded that they bring as many of the attackers as possible back alive. She also had her people watching the spectators with omni-oculars to record the reactions when Harry and Fleur arrived, and the boats surfaced and handed over the attackers and the weapons they used.

The general reaction to their arrival was applause, but the watching Aurors caught the dismay and anger on the faces of some, and how that turned to fear once the boats arrived at dock and had started handing over the prisoners to the DMLE. The British and French Ministry people on the Judging Panel tried to claim that Harry and Fleur had had outside assistance in completing the task and therefore must be disqualified from the tournament, but they changed their tune quick smart when Amelia responded with. "I don't think so! I have recorded proof that Duke Potter and Baroness Delacour were given no assistance in anything that could have been part of this task…. Though I _will_ be looking into how long the kelpies they repelled down there have been in Black Lake because they are not part of the recorded inhabitants of the Lake….. So unless the Triwizard Committee is claiming that these two dozen wizards who suddenly came of of hiding to attack Duke Potter and Baroness Delacour with Merman tridents were actually part of the task, the Duke and Baroness were given no assistance in completing the task."

Abbott went white at that, stammering. "No! No, of course not Madam Bones! The Committee would never be part of Champions being attacked like that… I apologise for the inference, it was just the shock at the sudden appearance of these boats that we knew nothing about!"

Amelia gave him an evil smile. "That is a relief Director Abbot, and I'm sure the Triwizard Committee won't have any objections to being questioned under Veritaserum to confirm that fact for us?"

Abbott was getting desperate. "Proposing that the Noble members of the Triwizard Committee be questioned like common criminals would be an affront to our honour Madam Bones! An insult like that will not be countenanced!"

"Come now Lord Abbott, where is the insult to your honour in officially confirming the facts that you've given us? This is standard procedure in serious matters of this nature….." Her face and voice suddenly hardened as she continued. "And in case you've forgotten, you have no choice in the matter! The Wizengamot passed the law requiring Veritaserum to be used on anyone and everyone called to confirm the facts of any criminal proceedings eighteen months ago….. And this obvious attempt to murder Duke Potter and Baroness Delacour and lay the blame on the Merpeople most _definitely_ qualifies as criminal proceedings!"

Everyone was still in an uproar when Ivan and Merula returned to the dock, and the judges had to remind Bagman to stop the clock and officially confirm that they had returned well inside the hour that they were allowed.

Unfortunately, while Amelia managed to have everyone of interest who was present at the Second Task detained for questioning, some of them had obviously managed to get word out to their superiors, because by the time the ones who'd hired the would-be assassins could be picked up, they'd been obliviated of everything to do with the Triwizard Tournament.

The Champions rankings after the Second Task didn't change, but the gap between Fleur and Ivan had now widened to the point that the tournament was down to either Harry or Fleur in the Third Task unless something in there killed both of them before Ivan and Merula began the task.

The bigger problem was that they were so focussed on Bagnold and the Triwizard Committee that they missed the fact that Bagman was suddenly having a lot of trouble maintaining his usual false bonhomie and was in fact looking like a rat caught in a trap if you managed to catch him in an unguarded moment.


	10. Slytherin Home

**That's it! I've had it with being attacked by anonymous cowards who obviously don't bother reading what is actually written in stories but seem to have some driving need to see their own half arsed self righteous OPINIONS of peoples' efforts posted for everyone to see. I presume that this makes them feel more important.**

 **The fact that the Fanfiction admins** ** **won't** at least let writers ban these so-called guest _reviews_ from being posted on their stories by anonymous cowards hiding behind the fact that they can't be identified astounds me, as they're nearly all baseless attacks. Us poor fools who make an effort to write stories have less rights on this site than those cowards who refuse to identify themselves for fear that people might take them to task for the unfounded attacks they throw at writers. If anyone wants to question this, just go and read the profiles of the many writers who have stopped posting on this site because of 'anonymous reviews'. **

**This is the end of this story and any others I have left in this space for the foreseeable future. I'm going to stop wasting my time trying to create anything and just go back to reading what's here from some of the others who have made the effort.**

 **Standard useless disclaimer for those who want to whine. No rights to any characters or events from JKR's HP stories.**

Harry kept his promise and returned to the Merpeople's village in his Merman form, and Hermione and Luna accompanied him as Mermaids. It turned out that the Merpeople didn't mind the Kelpies that had been introduced to the lake, so they were allowed to remain. Their Chieftainess had come to distrust Dumbledore and the representatives of the Department of Magical Creatures, so she was happy to hear that the Humans' Ministry was in the process of changing and Dumbledore no longer had any great power. Harry offered to introduce the new representatives of the Merpeople Liaison Office when it was established, explaining that this would most probably be a while coming, and she indicated that this was acceptable to her.

For the most part, the time between the Second and Third Tasks was fairly quiet. They didn't do much specific training for the Third Task and Ivan was the only one of the Champions who was involved in the Quidditch Cup, as while the Beauxbatons and Durmstrang delegations put together teams to play in the Cup, Fleur and Harry didn't play Quidditch and this was the first year that witches were allowed on the Slytherin team, so Merula wasn't part of a team either. Just to be safe, they ensured that the Durmstrang team didn't play Slytherin for at least two weeks before any of the tasks to give Ivan time to recover if necessary, because some of the Slytherin team still liked to play rough. Aside from that though, as the Bulgarian team found at the World Cup Final, having a world class seeker didn't guarantee a win unless the rest of team is just as good, so Ivan just made the Durmstrang team a little more competitive and they ended up coming second in the Quidditch Cup.

* * *

Over on the Continent, Quirinus Quirrell's life had gone to the crups. Everything had been going well for him up until that harridan McGonagall fired him from his position as Muggle Studies Professor… The cow actually had the gall to tell him that he knew nothing about the Muggle world…. He, who had the best NEWT scores in Muggle Studies in over twenty years, didn't know anything about Muggles? Ridiculous!

Then the cow had the hide to hire a _**Mudblood**_ to replace him! A Mudblood! It was a disgrace! Firing the scion of an old Pureblood family, replacing him with a Mudblood and then claiming that she could teach the subject better than _him?_ Those accursed Druids were destroying their country, challenging the rules that had governed them for generations and giving good Purebloods' jobs to filthy Mudbloods, half-bloods and supposedly cured werewolves, it couldn't be countenanced!

So many worthy Purebloods had had their jobs stolen from them since _Harry Potter_ returned to their world that Quirinus hadn't been able to find suitable position in Magical Britain, so he had been forced to take a job in a small private school belonging to friends of his family in Italy. Not only was this a major step down from being a Professor at Hogwarts, they forced him to learn Italian and worked him like an elf, expecting him to teach the youngest students all the basics because the _senior_ teachers were too busy teaching the older students. And to top it off, they went and fired him at the end of the school year! They actually had the hide to blame _him_ because the younger students' grades weren't up to the expected levels.

That was in the middle of Eighty Eight and he'd decided to take a well earned break to relax and enjoy the attentions of the local witches after he finished at that school. It hadn't taken him long to discover that all his school chum Gilderoy Lockhart's stories about winning the easy affections of the witches in the old countries and living the high life for a few knuts a day had been rather less than accurate though, for him at least…. But as he was out in the old countries anyway, Quirinus decided to emulate his school chum and use the superior skills he'd learned at Hogwarts to become a wandering hero and earn his fortune writing about his adventures.

That was why he ended up in the forests of Albania in late Eighty Eight, looking to make a name for himself by vanquishing the beast that was responsible for Witches, Wizards and Muggles disappearing in that area. He'd already decided that the 'Scourge of Albania' would be a good name for the beast when he wrote the story of his triumph over it.

* * *

Unfortunately for Quirinus though, he was as competent an adventurer as his school chum Gilderoy, which is to say…. Not at all! He was dozing in front of a camp fire in the forest one night, happily dreaming of being rich and famous like Gilderoy, with witches swooning at the slightest attention from him, when he woke to find himself looking an enormous viper in the eye from the distance of no more than foot or so, but the voice he could hear in his head was human, well…. almost human anyway.

Lord Voldemort, he refused to think of himself by the filthy Muggle name he was given at birth. _Tom Riddle_? If being Muggle weren't bad enough, it was also _common_! Even his Pureblood grandfather's name of Marvolo that he also carried was inadequate for the greatness he was destined to, so he'd changed his birth name into something more suitable for a Dark Lord. Rosier had paid the price for drunkenly asking one night whether he was afraid of death, seeing as the name he'd created for himself actually meant 'Flight From Death' in French…. Yessss…. Rosier's suffering before he expired had been magnificent enough to drive any thought of the Dark Lord being afraid of _anything_ from his other servants' heads. The only thing that stuck in their minds about that incident was that it was a _very_ bad idea to ever question their master about anything…..

Voldemort was both amused and angered to see as he read the mind of this pathetic excuse for a wizard that he had actually been a teacher at Hogwarts up until he was fired.… Dumbledore rejected him but accepted _this_? He sneered as he saw that the worm had taught Muggle Studies and his mind and magical powers were both weak, but at least he was a proper Pureblood, and as such he would make an acceptable vessel for the great Lord Voldemort. The magical viper he was currently inhabiting had escaped from a wizard in Greece and was drawn to his forest in Albania as she could feel the presence of a speaker there. She was the most suitable of the dozens of hosts he'd possessed in the over seven years since part of his shade had been cast back to the location where he'd created his last horcrux out of Ravenclaw's Diadem after his body was destroyed when he tried to kill the Potter child but he could tell that, even with the strengthening spells he'd cast on her, possessing her was accelerating her deterioration.…

There was also the question of what had happened to the rest of his shade because he could tell that a significant part of it was missing, but perhaps that was for the best because he had enough trouble as it was finding suitable host bodies that wouldn't be destroyed too quickly when he possessed them. If he was his full shade he wouldn't have been able to use anything but humans as hosts, and he'd only just escaped intact from those exorcists. Damned Muggle priests! They obviously held onto the old ways here and they were frighteningly effective… that last one had recognised the possession straight away and almost managed to banish him before he escaped….

All concerns about the exorcists aside, he reached a decision that this _wizard_ would make a more suitable host for him than the viper, and it would be easier to return to Britain quickly to finish his work in this form as well… Perhaps it would even be enough to get him back into Hogwarts, where the wizards' memories were saying that Harry Potter had already started school, even though he was only eight? The decision made, Voldemort struck, easily overpowering the wizard's feeble mind to possess him. Wizard and viper both collapsed immediately after Voldemort's shade moved from one to the other, and the sun had arisen by the time Voldemort regained consciousness in his new form.

He was half frozen when he woke because the fire had died out overnight, so he re-started it and built it up into a roaring blaze to try and get some heat back into his bones. A strange thing happened when he mused about cooking and eating his previous host to keep his strength up though, because she answered him! She had somehow survived the experience of his shade leaving her body and the cold must have made it shut down before she expired. Without his shade draining her life force she had managed to stabilise in hibernation overnight and was revived by the heat of the fire, but enough of his essence apparently remained within her for her to become his familiar, Nagini.

* * *

Voldemort directed _Quirinus_ to all the gold and other effects of the humans who had fallen victim to the snakes and other animals that he had possessed while he was residing in the forest, and collecting these gave them more than enough gold to get back to Britain, carrying Nagini on a sturdy bag that one of their victims had left behind.

Voldemort knew that he'd need support if he was to make a triumphant return from seven years in limbo, so he was floo hopping from one country to the next across Europe on his way back to Britain, trying to track down the followers and supporters he'd had on the Continent. He was getting increasingly aggravated though as he found that one after the other of his _loyal_ supporters were either dead, disappeared, imprisoned or surrounded by servants who blocked any and all approaches to them.

The only piece of luck he had in his search was in France, because Cyrille Lestrange had been forced to give up his Ministry position after the incident at Hogwarts. His cousin Isabelle Perrot had taken over his position after the Ministry higher ups decided that they needed to officially pay lip service to the stance that they didn't support behaviour like his at Hogwarts and dismissed him. After that, he'd been relegated to things like hiring the thugs who were to ambush Potter and Delacour in the Second Task of the tournament, and his Ministry career was finished. Needless to say, Cyrille Lestrange was _not_ a happy wizard and he jumped at the chance for some payback.

On the way back into Britain, Cyrille provided Voldemort with quite a bit of information about this Triwizard Tournament, because as a previous member of the Triwizard Committee he knew everything they had planned. He also gave Voldemort the key piece of information he needed to use this tournament for his own purposes, the name of the British Ministry of Magic's current Head of the Department of Magical Sports and Games, Ludo Bagman, who he had enough dirt on to ensure that he went through the Veil if it was released…. .

By the time Cyrille had tracked Bagman down and brought him to Riddle House to face his master, Voldemort had grudgingly accepted the fact that making the two of them take his mark would limit their ability to serve him, because Cyrille had told him about what had happened to Karkaroff when he tried to cross the wards at Hogwarts, and the fact that apparently the wards at the Ministry and other significant sites in Magical Britain would generate alerts at least if anyone with a Dark Mark crossed them, even if they didn't actively attack the Dark Mark…. So he would just have to rely on their fear to enforce their obedience to him.

Bagman fainted when he saw Voldemort's face growing out of the back of Quirrell's head, and did the same thing again when he came to to find Nagini's head filling his vision. Even Lestrange was uneasy about the way Voldemort and his familiar apparently found that hilarious, because that snake, which had been magically enlarged again so that she was at least ten feet long now, being the only thing he could see when he woke would have probably made him faint too.

Between the Dark Lord returned and his viper familiar, it wasn't too difficult to frighten Bagman into agreeing to do anything and everything the Master demanded of him. This included stealing the portkeys that Dumbledore had created while he was still Headmaster at Hogwarts and delivering them to the Master to be modified. They weren't absolutely certain than Dumbledore's portkeys would still work, but as a general rule, once portkeys had been properly keyed to wards, changes to who controlled those wards had little effect on their operation, so Voldemort was prepared to take a chance on it.

The other wizard Voldemort required took more effort to track down, but they managed. They needed a potions master of considerable talent to create the potions required for the ritual to create a suitable body to replace Quirrell's deteriorating one to serve as the Master's host. (Voldemort couldn't believe that Quirrell could have been naive or desperate enough to swallow his assurances that he would be restored and have an honoured place by his side when he had a new body, but apparently he was.) Snape had already been sent through the Veil of Death and the list of suitable replacements was short, but luckily for Voldemort Horace Slughorn, his old Potions Master from Hogwarts, had allowed himself to be lulled into a false sense of security by most of the Death Eaters being executed or incarcerated and came out of hiding.

While Slughorn was even more afraid of Voldemort and Nagini than Bagman was so fear would have been quite sufficient to control him, Voldemort wasn't prepared to forego the pleasure of making _him_ take the Dark Mark….. Lestrange and Bagman may need to be able to enter sites with wards that could detect the Dark Mark, but there was no reason for Voldemort to let Slughorn out of his sight, and the thought of him being killed for having the Dark Mark if he tried to run was amusing. As he knew from personal experience, Horace Slughorn was quite willing to rape and torture pre-teen boys, so having him do so to get his Dark Mark wasn't difficult, and it didn't take much of a nudge to get him to kill the boy afterwards…. Getting rid of the boy's body wasn't difficult either, Nagini was well fed that week.

Of course, while setting wards around the Little Hangleton graveyard at alert them if Voldemort and his Death Eaters came there wasn't an option because most competent witches and wizards could register their existence and Voldemort may have moved the resurrection ritual somewhere else, Harry, Hermione and Luna hadn't forgotten about the 'bones of the father' component of that ritual. Therefore, every Riddle and Gaunt skeleton in the graveyard had been switched with those from the oldest graves they could find of young girls to reduce the potential use that could be drawn from their bones in the ritual. The reasoning for choosing young girls' graves was twofold, the first being that the gender may have been an important component of the ritual, and the second, if they _were_ magical, their magic should be weaker and less developed….. But they would have been less likely to have died as children if they were magical anyway…. Harry would have died many times from his treatment at the hands of his relatives as a child without his magic. Being raised in a culture that followed the Christian faith, Hermione had a twinge of guilt over disturbing the children's remains like this….. But Harry gently reminded her that they were only switching their locations within the same graveyard, and if they were watching, they would hopefully be glad that they were possibly helping ward off the return of a great evil.

* * *

After the Second Task, Amelia made pointed reminders to the Triwizard Tournament Committee that any lethal obstacles that couldn't be circumvented in the maze that they'd had to admit would make up the Third Task would qualify as an attempt to kill the Head of a Most Ancient House and his Betrothed, and Amos refused to allow any XXXXX creatures to be imported into Britain for the Task. Dumbledore's original intention of coercing Hagrid into illegally breeding hybrid beasts for the tournament had already been circumvented. The giant wild Acromantulas in the colony in the Forbidden Forest had all been killed off so they could only use Acromantulas from the silk farms which were much smaller and less aggressive because they were domesticated, as well as being defanged. The threat of the death penalty also put paid to their intention to plant dementors in the maze, so this cut their options quite a bit.

After much complaint they cut the creatures in the maze down to a Welsh Green Dragon, a few Forest Trolls, a few Arcomantulas, two Sphinxes and a dozen boggarts, plus non-lethal plant, potion and spell obstacles for the rest of it. Their constant arguments about this made Bagman's task easier though, because he had to get the modified portkeys that had been keyed to Harry's blood attached to the Triwizard Cup and other items that would be around it, and the bickering about the restrictions being placed on them got the rest of the Triwizard Committee out if his way.

On the day of the Third Task, just about their entire extended family was there, but what no-one else realised was that over half of them were carrying extra weapons and portkeys that would take them straight to the Little Hangleton graveyard. Most of Amelia's Senior Aurors were also carrying portkeys to the graveyard, they just didn't know where they would take them. All Amelia told them was that the Druid Families' adopting Alastor Moody's level of paranoia had proven justified nearly every time they'd gone there, so if the Druids suddenly started disappearing, grab their Aurors and portkey after them with wands at the ready.

Some of the Senior Aurors who'd known her from when she was the Head Auror asked what they should be expecting to see when they arrived and she hesitated before answering.

"Expect to see a graveyard, Death Eaters, and maybe their Master as well…."

"Riddle? I thought Harry Potter killed him seven and a half years ago?"

"No, apparently his shade escaped and one of the Druids' seers has seen him returning... The same seer who told us about most of the Death Eaters we've uncovered and the attack at the Quidditch World Cup Final…. So I'm prepared to accept that she has the true sight and send you in with wands at the ready if their people suddenlt start leaving to go there."

That sobered them up and they nodded. There was no question that the Druids had had more accurate information than anyone else for the last couple of years, and they'd been responsible for most of the Death Eaters and their ilk who had been captured and made to pay for their crimes. If the Boss accepted what she was being told as true, so would they. Most of them told the Aurors in their teams to be ready to leave at a moment's notice.

At this point, Harry's birth age was nearly nine, but his body age was nearly fourteen. When he started at Hogwarts, he'd just turned eight, but had spent most of the year since he returned in Goblin time chambers to get three times the training and development he would have in real time. They had continued that while he was at Hogwarts, but the time ratio had dropped to two to one because he didn't spend as much time in the time chambers. Fleur was nearly twelve, but she'd spent as much time in the time chambers as Harry had since she met him, so her body age was fourteen. On top of that, Harry's reconstruction therapy and Fleur's Veela change had both added about three years to their apparent age and development so they appeared to be around seventeen.

This meant that Harry was now a very fit and healthy, nearly six foot tall wizard. Hermione and Luna had gone through everything Harry had, so their apparent age was the same as his. The reconstruction therapy had added less to their apparent age and development, but Hermione had been almost a year older than Harry and Luna at the start, and though Luna's Veela change was negated in part by the reconstruction therapy, it brought her up to the same apparent age and development… and height actually, because both girls were around five and a half foot tall.

As the time grew closer to the start of the task, Harry had a quiet word with the other 'Champions'.

"One of the people in our group is a seer, and most of her warnings to date have been proven right. She has been getting conflicting visions about what we will encounter in the maze, but she's told us to expect _something_ to be wrong. I recommend that you treat anything you see in there as a real threat and not take anything at face value. One of the visions she's had has one of us being imperioused and attacking the others, so if you see anyone else but us in there, don't hesitate to stun and bind them and send up sparks, and if you see one of us, keep your wand at the ready just in case. I'd be happy if one of you three won this, but I think we'll all be safer if it's finished as soon as possible so if I have a chance to end it early, that's what I'll be doing. And remember…. Once you're inside the maze you have satisfied the requirement to have competed in all three tasks, so if anything goes wrong you can send up sparks to be extracted without risk of being disqualified. Being alive is worth more far more than a thousand galleons and their bullshit eternal glory, after all, how eternal is it if no-one knows the names of any previous winners?"

Ivan and Merula were nodding, as Harry hadn't steered them wrong so far and they didn't see him trying to do it now. The officials and spectators saw the strange sight of the four Champions embracing one another and then Harry and Fleur dropping their robes to show that they were both wearing dragonskin suits like the one Fleur wore in the Second Task, except they were wearing dragonskin boots and half gloves that covered the backs of their hands as well now. When it was Ivan and Merula's turn, people would see that they were wearing the charmed leather versions of those suits. Harry and Fleur pulled on their dragonskin flying helmets and embraced again before the cannon blast was set off for Harry to enter the maze. As he passed Bagman, he noted how nervous the man was so he told Hermione and Luna over their link to have someone watch him.

* * *

Harry didn't get far into the maze before he saw a dementor coming towards him. That didn't make sense when the Committee was terrified of the death penalty for attempts to kill him so he ignored his own advice and tried "Riddikulus!", though he had the other dagger ready to cast a Patronus any second if that didn't work. It did work though and he continued until the cannon blast went off for Fleur to enter the maze.

When Fleur caught up to him, they gave the question and response they'd agreed just before Harry entered the maze to confirm that they were themselves and then went on together. Harry had an Heirloom dagger in either hand and Fleur had her wand in one and an Heirloom dagger that had accepted her in the other.

Soon after they heard the third cannon blast to indicate that Ivan was entering the maze, they heard a massive blasting curse and what sounded like the death throes of a boggart, so he was taking Harry's warning seriously.

One thing that was worrying them was the fact that the maze seemed too easy. Asking the dragon what was in the corridor it was guarding got the response that it was a dead end, so they could ignore that, but the committee knew that he was a Parseltongue who could talk to dragons…. So it was almost as if they _wanted_ him to win.

Getting past the two Sphinxes was almost as easy, though there was a delay while they talked both of them into abandoning the task and being portkeyed away to the Potter Estate. Harry would have loved to be a fly on the wall when the Triwizard Committee discovered that the two Sphinxes had disappeared from the maze, but he was suspicious about the fact that they'd bought the Sphinxes rather than hiring them for the tournament, as he could quite easily see the Ministry deciding to recoup some of the money by selling them for potions ingredients… They were sentient beings and that was _wrong_ , for that matter they were better people than most of the bastards in the Ministry too.

Knocking out the Trolls and flipping the Acromantulas onto their backs so that they could get past safely wasn't too difficult either, so they were soon standing in front of the Triwizard Cup. Scans of the cup confirmed that, as expected, there was magic on it, but Harry couldn't work out exactly what it was. It didn't show the expected portkey signature, even though he was sure that was what it was. He also had as much luck talking Fleur out of accompanying him to wherever this thing would be taking him as he expected, and the girls were laughing at him over their links for even making the attempt because Fleur had shot him down every other time he tried.

In the end, they made sure they were touching each other when with what served them as wands in hand, they both touched the Cup. Harry sent "Graveyard!" over the link, as they expected it but it needed to be confirmed to bring the rest of them in. The Goblin ward experts brought a modified version of the runestones they'd used at the Quidditch World Cup Final with them. These could be set in place and activated inside a minute, and allowed inbound apparation and portkeys, but not outbound. They also prevented any wraiths or the like leaving the containment area.

Between Riddle's arrogance and Lestrange and Slughorn's lack of combat training or experience, they didn't register the way that Harry and Fleur landed ready to fight and immediately turned to face where Tom Riddle Senior's grave was and the resurrection ritual had been last time. The girls asked what he was swearing about when Harry cast spells around the graveyard to reveal any life forms, but they joined in the swearing when he just said "Nagini!", because she wasn't supposed to be a horcrux yet.

Hermione immediately presented another possible option. "Maybe she _isn't_ a horcrux this time Harry? She might just be his familiar this time around?"

Harry eagerly latched onto that idea, he'd still kill her as soon as he could of course, because even without being a horcrux a ten foot magically enhanced viper familiar was a dangerous thing to add into a situation like this, but not having to banish a horcrux _and_ Riddle's shade would make for a better situation.

He could hear the faint sounds and feel the faint magic as the others started to come in disillusioned via Goblin portkeys, but the three figures he could see standing around the massive cauldron (with Quirrellmort turned away so Riddle was facing his minions) didn't show any indication that they'd registered anything, which seemed to indicate that Riddle's arrogant dismissal of Muggle methods and lesser creatures' magic had been enough to prevent him registering the signs.

Hermione's Time Travel Constants prevailed again as Riddle snapped "Kill the spare!", just as he had with Cedric, but it played out differently this time as Slughorn and Lestrange were both incapacitated, missing limbs and incarcerated, Quirrell lost his wand arm and Nagini was chopped into half a dozen pieces by overpowered cutting spells as soon as they got a clear line of sight on her…. all inside a minute. He was relieved to hear that there was no scream of a horcrux being released this time as Nagini died, he'd take Hermione's 'I told you so's over dealing with a horcrux any day, though Luna's snort over the links said that they'd heard that thought and he'd be paying for it later.

Having the tables turned on him so quickly shattered Riddle's confidence and he was immediately on his knees, using Quirrell's off hand to poke his wand into Slughorn's Dark Mark and frantically call his Death Eaters to him. The surprise was on Harry and the others then though, because there were four ' _crack_ 's as four Death Eaters who'd managed to remain hidden appeared and Riddle started sprouting the same crap as he had in the other timeline, until they were cut down by spells coming out of the surrounding darkness. The family didn't operate by Dumbledore's or the Ministry's rules, they didn't need to be complete to answer questions under Veritaserum and an adversary was less dangerous without a wand arm, so that was usually the first thing being blown off, closely followed by the other arm, just in case.

Quirrellmort hadn't noticed his host body being hit with a soul binding spell in the middle of the first engagement, and it was almost anti-climactic when his host lost its other arm and then Hedwig was joined by Harry, Hermione and Luna's Bennu animagus forms and Fleur's Veela form to eradicate every sign of Quirell and Nagini's bodies' existence with their fireballs. The Goblins were busy scanning the containment area for any trace of Riddle's shade, including everyone inside the containment area, but everything came up clean, Riddle's shade was _gone_!

Harry and Fleur grabbed the Triwizard Cup and portkeyed back to Hogwarts, ignoring everyone who demanded to know where they'd gone, why their dragonhide suits were showing signs of being in a fight and why most of their family had disappeared soon after them.

When Bagnold tried to use her position as the Minister for Magic to force Harry and Fleur to answer her, Harry just said. "I would suggest that you get the report of what happened tonight from your Director of the Department Magical Law Enforcement Minister Bagnold." And walked off to where Hermione and Luna were waiting for him, pausing only to confirm that Ivan and Merula had gotten out of the maze OK.

 **A/N: And that's it. While it's possible that I _may_ write something else in the HP space some time in the future, at the moment all I can think of to say is FOAD to all the anonymous cowards who attack those who make the effort to write without even bothering to read what they wrote, and who are too gutless to identify themselves when they attack people. So to you lot, FOAD.**


	11. So Long And Thanks for All The Fish

**Thanks to all of you who left notes of support, I do appreciate them and they moved me to get over my anger at the trolls (who have hopefully given up and moved on by now) and put this chapter together. I'll be leaving the 'abandoned' notice up though, in hope that it will help throw them off the scent.**

 **NB: In case the ones who apparently have trouble with reading comprehension are still here…. Yes, in this world most of the feudal culture and laws of Magical Britain are still heavily weighted to give all rights and control to the aristocracy that has ruled it since the Nobles created the Wizengamot to try and wrest control away from the Druid guiding families in the early Sixteenth Century. The Druid Laws were originally created in the early Eleventh Century in an attempt to prevent the aggressive Magical Lords they could see starting to emerge using force to subjugate the magical people of Britain (who were mainly Druids) and force them to serve as their minions, just as the Warrior Kings of Britain were doing with the non-magical people. The Druid Laws remain in force as a means to keep the descendants of those Magical Lords in check, as their desire to rule over everyone else with an iron fist (well, armoured fist as cold iron interferes with magic) has not changed appreciably.**

 **As I said, I've been mostly reading rather than writing since I put the last chapter up, and for anyone who likes the same flavour of stories as I do, I heartily recommend mandymld, Nemesis13, senawario** **and Colt01's stories, they may not be written with the same focus as my stories and I may not agree with everything in them, but I found them quite enjoyable. Nemesis13** ** **, senawario** and Colt01 still appear to be writing too, given that they've posted updates in the last month or so. **

**Usual disclaimers, I have no rights in regard to JKR's characters, scenes or stories.**

Delores Umbridge's 'Senior Undersecretary to the Minister for Magic' position, Baronetcy and Wizengamot seat were all lost to Arthur under Druids Law and the rules of the old aristocracy because she fell for Luna's goading. Under the Wizengamot charter, major Department Heads and other senior Ministry positions were bestowed by the Wizengamot, just as they had been by royal decree in the old days. Baronetcies and Wizengamot seats were assigned to the roles to give those holding senior Ministry positions a voice in the Wizengamot, albeit a minor one, and they elevated their families to Minor Houses if they weren't already Gentry or above. These titles, holdings and seats could be allocated, claimed by right of conquest or forfeited to others under the Druid and Wizengamot Law.

There was no way that Minister Bagnold could afford to let Arthur Weasley come anywhere near the type of dodgy deals she was making to maintain her position and carry out her plans, so she'd had to talk the houses in her alliance into giving up another Baronetcy with the associated holdings and vote, and a Wizengamot seat to create a new _Junior_ Undersecretary to the Minister for Magic position for Cornelius Fudge. She would have preferred to have used someone more capable, but couldn't afford to let any of the brighter and more ambitious types she really needed in that position find out enough about her business to potentially depose her. Fudge had the same type of rat cunning as Umbridge had had, so he knew enough to blackmail her into conceding him more to take the position while at the same time understanding that he really had no hope of deposing her, so he'd stay faithful to her so long as she gave him what he wanted to claw back to what her regarded as his rightful position after he'd lost so much to Weasley over his son….

 _Son!_ He was furious about how much he'd lost because of that disappointment. Fudge would never be bright enough to understand, let alone accept, the perils of inbreeding, and the Fudge line was close to dying out because of that. Unfortunately for his son, the Prewett family hadn't been much better, Muriel No-name had been one of few children of the Flint line born with any sort of cunning and she had assisted her great niece Molly in snagging the heir to the far stronger Weasley bloodline to revitalise the flagging Prewett bloodlines…. But while that plan had worked with Arthur's children, and Barty Crouch's children had also come out quite well, Molly and Corny Fudge were first cousins from two rather tired bloodlines and that pairing had created a very mediocre wizard who was as thick as two short planks and too lazy to scratch his own arse... The only thing that shone out of Ronald Cornelius Fudge was his massive sense of entitlement, but of course his father couldn't see that he was mostly to blame for his son turning out that way.

* * *

The Druids knew what Bagnold was doing of course, but they let her because Fudge was less of a threat than others would have been in that position, and they used her machinations to force her to officially support the creation of Undersecretary positions for the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, Department of International Cooperation, Department of Magical Education and Department of Mysteries for Alice Longbottom, Albert Davis (Tracey's father), Algernon Tofty and Pandora Lovegood respectively. (Pandora and Celeste Greengrass were both unspeakables, just as Lily Potter had been up until her death because she gained her masteries in Potions, Charms and Ancient Runes and was taken on by the Department of Mysteries soon after she took her NEWTs at Hogwarts. She'd been working on her masteries in secret throughout her NEWT years at Hogwarts and took her mastery exams as soon as she was allowed to do so, which was a couple of months after her NEWTS. Pandora and Celeste took another year or two to get their masteries, but they'd also been snapped up by the Department of Mysteries before anyone else could get them.)

Bagnold could also see what _they_ were doing, making sure that the Wizengamot and the rest of Magical Britain saw that those were by far the most important departments in the Ministry of Magic, but she recognised that they wouldn't let her have her Junior Undersecretary unless they got _their_ Undersecretaries, so she had to support them to get what she needed.

Another loss to the Druids was how they'd used the fact that her minion in charge of the Department for Magical Education had effectively sabotaged a whole year's education for the students of Hogwarts, Beauxbatons and Durmstrang at Hogwarts, just to comply with the Triwizard Tournament Committee's demands without a thought for the students' education needs, to get the ICW's support to push through the demand that Griselda Marchbanks, as the Director the Wizarding Examination Authority, officially take over the Department of Magical Education. When they did this Algernon Tofty, as the second in charge after Marchbanks in the Wizarding Examination Authority, was officially made Undersecretary for the Director of Magical Education to give him the authority he needed to run the department when Marchbanks was tied up with Wizengamot business. Marchbanks had also turfed every one of her people out of the department and replaced them with ones that met _her_ criteria for the guiding the magical education of Britain's children, as well as having everyone take the same oaths as the Druids' other departments.

And _then_ she was forced to support the amalgamation of the rest of Magical Creatures into International Cooperation and Magical Law Enforcement, along with the creation of the Sentient Magical Creatures Liaison Office in International Cooperation and the Regulation and Control of Magical _Pests_ Department (which Amos Diggory remained the Head of) in Magical Law Enforcement. Magical Pests took over and amalgamated the responsibilities for the capture and/or eradication of rogue werewolves, Research and Restraint of Dragons, Troll Patrol, Ghoul Task Force, Committee for the Disposal of Dangerous Creatures and the old Pest Advisory Board. Most of Magical Creatures' actual magizoologists had ended up in Magical Pests, and they drew on the Aurors, MLE Patrol and Accidental Magic Response team (which was an amalgamation of the Accidental Magic Reversal and Obliviators Offices) in the DMLE and the Muggle Liaison Office in International Cooperation if necessary.

Bones had completely eradicated the Hit Wizards Office… which in truth had only been created for a place to put all the traditional Purebloods who couldn't meet the standards required of Aurors…. nearly two years ago. Aside from the rare few Hit Wizards who were capable of and motivated enough to improving their skills and qualifications to become Aurors or Patrol Officers under her new rules and fully complying with the DMLE oath, they were turfed out of the DMLE. Many of them had been from her supporters' families (after all, that's why the office was created) though, so she couldn't afford to have them fired from the Ministry and she'd moved as many as she could into other Ministry departments, most of them going into Magical Creatures because it had been the biggest and best funded of the departments she had left.

Of course, Bones had fired most of the Magical Creatures staff as soon as they were made part of the Magical Pests Department in the DMLE (if they were lucky, more than a few of them had been tried, stripped of their magic and thrown into Azkaban or through the Veil of Death after they were questioned under Veritaserum) and replaced them with Half-bloods, Mudbloods and those so-called ex-werewolves and ex-vampires who then got extra training and equipment. This meant that the Magical Pests and Accidental Magic Response Departments and MLE Patrol Office were effectively extensions of the Auror Office now, made up of more capable witches and wizards with better training, capabilities and equipment than before, so Magical Britain was better protected than it had been in centuries… In fact if you included the resources of Demi-Britain which were only a mirror call away, it was probably the best it had _ever_ been protected.

She'd learned her lesson and shut up after the first time she tried to stir up the public's ire about the way Bones was wasting Ministry funds blew up in her face. The Druids had come back straight away with the figures to prove that Bones had done little more than replace the ineffectual Hit Wizards with more qualified Aurors and MLE Patrol Officers and improve their training and equipment so that they could do their jobs better, and that most of the extra funds needed to do that had come from donations given by patrons who were concerned about the safety of the people of Magical Britain. As far as Magical Pests and the Accidental Magic Response Office went, there was no significant increase in numbers….. Officially, they'd officially just amalgamated the myriad separate offices to stop wasting money by having several different offices doing much the same thing and improved their training and equipment to help them deal with what they may run into if what they were sent to address turned out to be an attack by dark witches and wizards or dangerous dark creatures.

For that matter, nothing could be done about the fact that the guards at Azkaban had supposedly _forgotten_ to release the dementors from the lower dungeons after the Minister's last annual inspection of Azkaban, which had left them feeding on each other to get the energy to survive until they had all been wiped out….. _Or_ the fact that the ever increasing reek of the rotting dementor husks had driven most of the prisoners in the high security areas closer to the dementors' dungeons to stop eating and starve themselves to death or kill themselves outright (Death Eater and others of their ilk had mindsets that were less effected by the dementors than most people, but they couldn't turn off their sense of smell).

Golems had been used to deliver the prisoners' food and water with conjured plates, cups and utensils which disappeared a few hours later for well over a century, new prisoners were portkeyed straight into their cells and rune based spells were used to automatically clean the prisoners and cells because it was too dangerous for the handful of human guards employed at Azkaban to be in the dementor filled corridors. This meant that Bagnold had no official grounds to challenge the story that no-one had realised that the dementors hadn't been released or the prisoners were dying, even though she _knew_ it was a lie, she knew that Bones had wiped out the Dementors at the first opportunity, clearing out the High Security prisoners that she'd argued should have been put to death was just a side benefit.

Bones had always been outspoken about the dementors being barbaric, useless and a danger to the people of Magical Britain, harping on about how many of them had defected to He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named's side in the war…. Her complaints had been brushed off with the argument that they'd been using the dementors ever since they took over Azkaban nearly three hundred years ago, and aside from some _isolated_ (the ten years of the war and dozens of other unrelated events) incidents, they hadn't had any trouble with them, so the people of Magical Britain trusted them to protect them from Dark Wizards (the fact that they'd eagerly slaughtered everyone they could at Voldemort's orders in the war and went rogue whenever they had a chance, _and_ what they were really like had, of course, always been kept from the people of Magical Britain).

And then there was the fact that Bones was now making the Improper Use of Magic office focus on the Statute of Secrecy instead of the Mudbloods' Underage Magic. This meant that they were stripping away Purebloods' magic and throwing them into Azkaban for inconsequential things like Muggle Baiting and obliviating Muggle girls after they'd had their fun with them rather than binding the magic of those Muggle-born and Muggle-raised brats and obliviating everyone around them like they were supposed to. She'd tried to force Bones to follow orders and stick with the way things had always been done, but that hard headed bint had just waved the _Law_ at her and told her that _no-one_ was exempt from the _Law_ …. The way she said that had sounded like a threat actually…. She _knew_ that the standing Minister could not be prosecuted for any crimes, after all they'd used law that to stop her back when she got Black released and exonerated, so what was she up to? She'd even been prosecuting Purebloods for using the unforgivables on _Muggles_ as if they were being used on witches and wizards! _Everyone_ knew that when the Law referred to _humans_ that it was _only_ referring to witches and wizards, but Bones was insisting that humans meant _all_ humans, and the Merlin be-damned Wizengamot was supporting her!

Unlike many of her supporters though, Bagnold could see where this was going, because while they were doing everything they could to cover it up, _she_ knew quite well that the vast majority of the important functions of the Ministry were now being controlled by the Druids' people, who were using the _official_ rules of the Ministry to limit the demands she could make on them. They'd even stopped her people accessing much of the sensitive information in the Ministry records because at some time in the Ministry's history, someone had dumped all responsibility for the protection and integrity of Ministry information onto Magical Law Enforcement and strict rules had been set in place to determine who could access what Ministry information and why. Under Crouch, all she had needed to do to get any and all information that the Ministry had on any given subject was demand it, but now she had to specify exactly what she wanted and why, and they would only give it to her _if_ the Director of the DMLE deemed her reasons justified. Millicent had learned quick smart that "I'm the Minister and you will do what I say!" _didn't_ work any more.

* * *

On top of all that, her people who had previously been dealing with the Merpeople had heard them say something strange when they were told that they would now be dealing with the Sentient Magical Creatures Liaison Office instead of the Magical Creatures' Beast Division….. "So long, and thanks for all the fish…." This had jogged the memory of one of her younger aides who was in Ravenclaw with a Muggle-raised half-blood who had shown him books written by a Muggle Seer by the name of Adams, so they sent someone into the Muggle world to get these strangely named books….. They never explained what a Hitchhiker was either?

The thing was, while the Merfolk did not have the Centuars' reputation of being seers, very few witches or wizards had ever bothered to get any real understanding of the Merfolk or their abilities, so they didn't _know_ that they weren't another race of seers…. and the fact remained that there was no way that the Merfolk could have interacted with this Adams, so giving the same clues as Adams _had_ to mean that they had _seen_ the same things as him. Her people argued that this in turn gave credence to Adam's prophecy about the number 42 holding great meaning, so she assembled teams of Arithmancers to work on deciphering its meaning….

Legend had it that a little over forty years ago, a revelation had come to Albus Dumbledore in the middle of the epic battle where he vanquished and eradicated the Dark Lord Gellert Grindelwald which had changed the focus of Arithmancy in Britain from the outmoded idea of using it for spell crafting to its _true_ purpose of deciphering prophecies… and everyone _knew_ that Britain, and the Great Albus Dumbledore in particular, were the unquestioned world leaders in magic. (Of course, the Sheeple of Magical Britain didn't know that the 'epic battle' and the vanquishing and eradication of Grindelwald were all nothing but a lie. Dumbledore had merely distracted his lover with a bit of slap and tickle and then cursed him in the back so that he woke up in a cell in Nurmengard Castle, where he had been secretly incarcerated up until he was tried and executed a year or so back. This was obviously Dumbledore's favourite way of ensuring that someone couldn't talk about his secrets, seeing as he'd done much the same to Sirius…. Mind you Sirius was quite happy to have missed out on the at least four or five conjugal visits a year that Grindelwald had been getting from Dumbledore while he was incarcerated.)

So while those fools in Europe, the Americas and primitive cultures were still wasting their time trying to use Arithmancy to craft meaningless variations of proven spells, Magical Britain was now using it as it was _truly_ meant to be used, to discern the meaning of events to come. Someone must have leaked the fact that they were researching the meaning of 42 to the Druids though, because those arrogant blood-traitors and half-bloods were sniggering and making comments about it in the Wizengamot sessions, obviously trying to throw them off, but they _would_ crack its meaning…. and when they did, the laugh would be on the Druids!

* * *

Minister Bagnold forgot about the Potter brat when she saw the Aurors arresting Ludo Bagman, and then she actually had Bones in her face threatening _her_ with arrest if she kept trying to interfere with official DMLE processes when she demanded that they release him. She sneered at Bones when she said. " _Your_ minion Bagman is under arrest for sabotaging the Triwizard cup by adding an illegal portkey to send Duke Potter and Baroness Delacour to a site hundreds of miles away where they were attacked by the host of Voldemort's shade and his remaining Death Eaters, because they were planning to use Duke Potter in a ritual to bring Voldemort back to a proper body, It was only the precautions we took in conjunction with Duke Potter's family that prevented Voldemort being returned to a state where he was a major threat to Magical Britain again and Duke Potter and Baroness Delacour being murdered!"

"You're delusional Bones! He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named has most definitely _not_ returned and I will not allow you to attempt to frame _Director_ Bagman for whatever plot you are trying to fabricate here! I demand that you release Director Bagman at once, and those other doubtless innocent citizens of Magical Britain that you've dragged into this plot of your's as well!"

She was furious when Bones _laughed_ at her. "You appear to be rather worried Minister Bagnold, just what is it you are trying to hide? No matter, I'm sure that we will find that out when we question all the prisoners under Veritaserum….with impartial ICW observers present because Baroness Delacour is a citizen of Magical France of course! No Minister Bagnold, _you_ are the one who is delusional if you believe that your ordering their release is enough to override the international legal requirements for criminal investigations…. And by the way, now that the Tournament is finished, your _Director_ Abbot and the other members of the Triwizard Committee have also been arrested, so that they can be questioned about all the _other_ criminal activities that were carried out as part of this tournament."

With that, Bones turned and walked away, and looking around, Millicent saw that Bagman, Abbott, Dumbledore and everyone else associated with the Triwizard Committee had disappeared. She'd been angry before, but now she was terrified, how had Bones managed to spirit them all away this quickly? She grabbed her guards and got to a point where she could portkey back to her office as quickly as possible, only to be met by the notice of an emergency Wizengamot session being held in two hours. That made her abandon her plans to confront Bones and start making urgent floo calls to her supporters, as she knew that she'd need all the help that she could get in this session.

Bagnold knew that she was doomed though when she saw who the ICW observers were, because they were ICW _judges_ and the ICW representatives of Magical Bulgaria and the Nordic Congress (France was represented by the Head of their DMLE equivalent, who had previously worked under Comte Delacour, because their ICW representatives were related to the French Citizens being questioned). This of course meant that any attempt to discredit the testimonies they obtained would be a waste of effort because they had been present when they were taken. She had to grudgingly concede that point to Bones because that had been a masterful move. The ICW judges sat on the bench with the Chief Warlock and Chief Witch throughout the trials, as they had veto power in regard to any and all rulings on non-British defendants.

The trials went quickly, Bagman lost his magic and got life in Azkaban but he had nothing of worth to forfeit, so they settled for eradicating the Bagman family name. Slughorn lost his magic and went through the Veil of Death because of all the young children (mostly boys) he'd raped and tortured and the boy he'd murdered to get his Dark Mark, most of his worth was split between his victims but he was the last member of a British Noble House and that boy's parents insisted that his title and the associated holdings go to Harry as he could do more good with them, the House of Slughorn was also eradicated. Quirrell had been a minor son of a British Noble House with nothing to his name, but the House of Quirrell was made to forfeit one twelfth of its worth to Harry for Quirrell's participation in the plot to sacrifice him to resurrect Voldemort. Lestrange also lost his magic and was put through the Veil for his part in the plot to kill the Head of a Most Ancient House and his Betrothed. He was also the Tertiary Heir to the Noble Lestrange Family, so they were forced to forfeit a French Barony and its associated holdings plus one twelfth of its worth to the Delacours and its majority holdings in a major French broom company to Ivan's branch of the Krum family (it was meant for Harry but he redirected it to Ivan as Lestrange had been involved in setting up the tournament which put his life at risk).

Then they started on the Triwizard Committee. Abbott was up first…. he had his magic bound for fifteen years with ten years of that in Azkaban and forfeited his Barony as the Head of the British Noble House of Abbott and Baronetcy as the Head of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Sports, which was promptly absorbed into the Department of International Cooperation and most of its staff were fired, to be replaced with more qualified and useful people. The Noble House of Abbott also forfeited one twelfth of its worth to the tournament competitors, plus another sixth to Minerva, Filius, Hagrid, Pomona and the others at Hogwarts they blackmailed into letting the tournament go ahead there.

Most of Karkaroff's worth had been forfeited to his victims from his time as a Death Eater, but they took everything else and eradicated the Karkaroff name as a mark of his guilt in regard to the tournament.

Unfortunately, even though Perrott's actions were those of a daughter of the Lestrange Family, she was there as a Perrott, so they couldn't hit the Lestranges again and had to settle for a twelfth of the worth of the Perrott Family and her magic bound for six years with three years of that in Azkaban for her part in the Triwizard Committee's actions, and did the same to the other French members of the Triwizard Committee. With the ICW's assistance though they _did_ manage to hit the French Ministry hard for the blackmail that forced Fleur to compete and Olympe to make Beauxbatons participate in the tournament though. Like Bagnold, the French Minister had managed to ensure that there was no concrete evidence linking him to the plot but they decimated the families that made up his power base in the Ministry, doing enough damage to allow Alain to push him out and take over as Minister.

Most of the other British members of the Triwizard Committee were small fish, so like the French members they got a few years in Azkaban with their magic bound for twice that and forfeited a twelfth of their families' worth. The members of the Druid Alliance in the chamber were having fun watching Bagnold shrink into herself a little more each time the verdict took another bite out of her power base.

After all the small fish had been dealt with, they got on to the main event, Ankles Dumbledore. Like Bagnold, Dumbledore had been collapsing more and more as everything he was sure he had in place to protect him was stripped away, so he was a broken wizard by the time the Chief Witch, Chief Warlock and ICW judges called him forward to be bound into the accused's chair.

 **A** **N: Just in case anyone** _ **didn't**_ **get it, the Muggle 'Seer' was Douglas Adams and the books were the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series. Hey, it's what** _ **I'd**_ **do if I was part of the group who took interfaces with the Merpeople off those Pureblood bigots, throw in something that would totally confuse them, even more so if any of them** **might have** **contact with someone who was reading the books from the Muggle world. ;^)**

 **AN 2: Leaving this chapter here because the next chapter will be mainly about the life and lies of Albus Dumbledore, using a few little tidbits from the last Fantastic Beasts story.**


	12. Life and Lies of Albus Dumbledore

**The plan for Ankles Dumbledore's trial is to strip away all the legends he made up about himself being the 'Leader of the Light' and the 'Greatest Wizard since Merlin' and show the world what a MOB he was, so it'll be dredging up over a century of Dumbledore's crimes and misdemeanours. Anyone who for any reason likes Ankles' character will _not_ like this chapter, you have been warned!**

 **If anyone wants an image of what he was like in his younger days (in this world), think Gilderoy Lockhart with Percy Weasley and Draco Malfoy's puffed up sense of self importance and superiority.**

 **Usual disclaimers, no rights to anything from JKR's stories.**

The Wizengamot benches and gallery were packed for Albus Dumbledore's trial, half wanted to see him get his just deserts, but the other half still believed all of the manipulative old bastard's shite. It didn't take long for this to come to a head, because the list of charges against him was too long to read out, so copies of the charges were just sent to the Wizengamot seats and the Clerk of the Court announced that Albus Percival Dumbledore was being tried for those charges.

Alphias Doge leapt to his feet and shook the sheaf of parchment that made up the list of charges angrily at the Chief Witch and Chief Warlock's bench, shouting that all these so-called charges against Albus were obviously nothing more than a fabrication to try and damage the reputation of a great wizard….. And furthermore! None of these procedures were legal because they weren't using his _proper_ name of Albus Percival _Wulfric Brian_ Dumbledore. He didn't know what to say when the Chief Witch burst out laughing at that, but collapsed into his chair, stunned, when Griselda finally managed to control herself enough to respond.

"I have it on good authority that the DMLE has ample evidence to prove that each and every one of those charges is valid Mister Doge, and from what I have been shown, they have in fact restricted the list in front of you to only the more serious charges…. Because even if it was limited to actual crimes, if they had _all_ been included, that list would have been many times larger than it currently is because the defendant has apparently been quite an active criminal for over a hundred years now. And as for your other point, the official Ministry and Gringotts records have both confirmed that Albus Percival Dumbledore _is_ his proper name, he apparently added the other two names himself in some attempt to make himself appear more important."

She waved at the Clerk of the Court to finish initiating the session and when he had done so, silenced the defendant and indicated for Harry and Aberforth Dumbledore to come forward. It soon became clear to most in the chamber that the questions Harry was asking and Aberforth was answering were part of some ancient ritual but the nature of the ritual wasn't clear until Abe put his hands on the Stone and said. "The only surviving members of the Magical Dumbledore Family of Britain at this time are Albus Percival Dumbledore, the Head of the Family Dumbledore and myself, Aberforth Percival Dumbledore. I accuse Albus Percival Dumbledore of causing the family honour of the Dumbledore Family to be damaged beyond redemption. I call for the family magic of the Dumbledores to judge the surviving members of the Magical Dumbledore Family and their actions. If the family magic of the Dumbledores is in agreement with me, I call for the ruling that the Dumbledore Family be eradicated here and now!"

Abe, Harry, the Stone and Albus Dumbledore all disappeared in the brilliant light emitting from the Stone as the family magic probed both Dumbledore brothers, then the light died down and the voice of the Stone rang out. **"The Dumbledore Family Magic has judged the** **surviving members of the Magical Dumbledore Family and concurs with the last worthy member of the Dumbledore Family, Aberforth Percival Dumbledore. The actions of the last Head of the Dumbledore Family, Albus Percival Dumbledore, have damaged the honour of the Dumbledore Family beyond redemption** **and therefore the Magical Dumbledore Family of Britain is hereby** **eradicated! From this point forth, the Family Name of the Brothers Dumbledore will revert to that of their maternal bloodline, Jones!"**

At that moment, the name Albus Percival Dumbledore was changed to Albus Percival _Jones_ on all magical documents in the chamber and Albus Jones slumped in the Accused's Chair as he was stripped of the family magic of the Head of the Family Dumbledore. As the only Dumbledore family member judged to be worthy, Aberforth didn't lose what he had of the Dumbledore family magic, but his ancestors and brother had jealously restricted the majority of the family magic to the Head and Heir of the family only, so he wouldn't have had much to lose anyway.

Harry was actually impacted far more than Aberforth, because he wasn't expecting to be hit with the family magic that was taken from the Head of the Family Dumbledore. The Family Judgement Ritual, which was being used for the first time since the Druid Laws were created, had to be initiated by the magic of one of the original Druid Lords, and Sirius had insisted that he be the one to do it as Dumbledore had hurt him more. The thing was, what they hadn't realised was that the family magic didn't just disappear, it was transferred like it was when a house was eradicated by right of conquest, and as the Dumbledore family had been eradicated, the only place it could be transferred to was the House of the Druid Lord who initiated the ritual.

Albus Dumbledore had manipulated or removed every record he could find that related to the Dumbledore family in an attempt to hide their family secrets, so most of the people in the chamber had no idea that the Dumbledores had in fact been much like the Gaunts, an old Pureblood family who were so inbred that they almost died out. They probably would have if Kendra Jones hadn't managed to convince her housemates in Slytherin that she was a Pureblood like them when she was in fact a Muggleborn.

Kendra had been well endowed with the cunning and ambition that Slytherins were _meant_ to have so she investigated what all the old families were famous for. This led to her setting her cap for her housemate Percival Dumbledore as the best of a bad lot. Percival himself was no prize, being much like what was left of the Flint Family in their time, but the Dumbledores were traditionally known for being masters of mind magic, so she was banking on being able to use the family mind magic to improve their station once she became the Consort of the Head of the Dumbledore Family. That didn't work out the way she planned though, as the Consort of the Head of the Family got no access to the family's special mind magics and she was largely relegated to bearing heirs for her husband.

* * *

Griselda didn't give Albus Jones a chance to recover from the shock of losing his family magic, as soon as Harry and Abe had taken her seats she signalled Amelia to make her opening address. They were expecting the defence's opening address to be long, largely unrelated to the matter at hand and heavily laden with attempts at emotional blackmail, because Albus Dumbledore had decreed that no-one could defend him as well as he could himself… But that had been a large part of the reason for stripping the Dumbledore Family mind magics from him before the proceedings started, to throw him off balance and prevent him using them to twist the perceptions of the Wizengamot members in particular. With the possible exception of Alphias Doge though, he would have had a hard time finding anyone who was both qualified and _willing_ to represent him anyway.

Amelia wasn't far into her opening address before Jones interrupted her with a loud shout of. _**"Objection!"**_ Griselda went to snap at him but the Chief Warlock's hand on her arm was a subtle but emphatic ' _My turn!_ '.

"How is it possible for you to have been the Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot of Magical Britain for over forty years without learning anything about the process of law in the Wizarding World Mister Jones? Madam Bones is merely making her opening address, you have no grounds to object to anything as yet and what's more, it is a major breach of protocol to interrupt opposing council while they are making their address as you have done!"

"She is talking about raking up things from my past that she is not allowed to prosecute me for!"

"Yes…. Madam Bones has already stated that she is quite aware of that fact, _and_ that her reason for doing this is to establish the pattern of behaviour that led to the matters that we _will_ be addressing today. Madam Bones has explained her reasoning to My Lady Chief Witch, our esteemed colleagues from the International Confederation of Wizards' Judiciary and myself and we have all agreed to allow her to follow this through. Madam Bones is not making any accusations against you at this point, she is merely advising the sitting Wizengamot members that she will be presenting verified evidence to show this pattern of behaviour…. And I will give you a warning here and now Mister Jones, if you make any unfounded accusations against Madam Bones or the Department of Magical Law Enforcement in _your_ opening address, I will immediately terminate your opening address and silence you until we agree that you have reason to speak!"

Jones shut up and slunk down in his seat, suddenly remembering how much he had enjoyed riding roughshod over Earl Ogden and everyone else in the Wizengamot for the forty years or so that he had held the power of the Chief Warlock's position….. Which was apparently coming back to bite him now. Between that and losing his family's mind magics, he had a very bad feeling about how this was going to go.

When Amelia finished, Jones stumbled through a rather cut down and more humble version of the opening address that he had been planning to give, and then the Chief Witch and Chief Warlock asked Amelia to call her first witness. As a fiery, resolute and frighteningly clear eyed Bathilda Bagshot took the stand and glared at him, Jones had the urge to throw himself on the mercy of the court, the only thing that stopped him was the fact that he rather doubted that he would be receiving any mercy from them.

* * *

Tiberius had Jones silenced and bound when he tried to raise an objection again because Amelia explained that they had certified evidence that Bathilda had been held under memory charms for most of the time since the turn of the century, which had only recently been cleared from her (the glares they both shot Jones' way at that left no doubt as to who'd done that to her). She had Bathilda the start her testimony at the point where Kendra Dumbledore arrived in Godric's Hollow in 1891 with her three children to start over after her husband had been thrown into Azkaban (where he died less than a year later) for very publicly torturing and killing three Muggle children in a violent Muggle baiting incident, describing Albus as a puffed up little peacock who was using his new power over the family magic as the head of the family to lord it over his mother and siblings.

Bathilda explained that, like many Half-bloods, by the standards of the run of the mill Purebloods Albus had come into his magic early and was rather powerful, so when Head of the Dumbledore family and its family magic passed to him at the age of ten because his father was sentenced to Azkaban for twenty years, he had little trouble reading and manipulating the minds and memories of many Muggles and average Witches and Wizards. He'd also acquired more than a dollop of his mother's cunning and believed himself to be a Pureblood so he'd manipulated enough people to have all the trappings of a rich and powerful young Head of House by the time he started at Hogwarts the next year, and he ruled the roost when he was sorted into Slytherin. He was an above average student, but judicious use of compulsion and memory charms on the students and staff had his record showing that he was an outstanding one.

Back in Godric's Hollow, his mother and siblings were living well enough, even though the purse strings had to be held tight. His brother Aberforth followed in Albus' footsteps in getting his magic early and being more powerful than most, but his personality was more like his rough father's than his puffed up peacock of a brother's. Their little sister Ariana came into her magic even earlier, but she had a tendency for uncontrolled outbursts of magic that were very difficult to cover up. This created a problem for a family that had moved to a new village to hide from the stigma of a father in Azkaban with a reputation for threatening the Statute of Secrecy with his murderous Muggle baiting, so Albus used the family magic to bind Ariana's magic so tight that she was no more than a squib.

Over the next five years or so, Ariana's magic kept straining against its bindings and the outbursts of magic grew ever more wild and uncontrolled but Albus, as the Head of the Family, refused to listen to any of the people advising him that Ariana needed to be trained in how to handle her magic so that she could become the powerful witch she was obviously destined to be, he just wiped the incidents from everyone's memories and bound Ariana's magic even tighter. So when she turned eleven, Ariana was written off as a Squib and remained at home with her mother.

Bathilda sneered at Albus Jones and told how he had refused to pay his brother Aberforth's tuition at Hogwarts past his OWLs, even though Aberforth had scored quite well. He did so well in fact that the Care of Magical Creatures Master talked the then Headmaster, Phineas Black, into giving him a job as Apprentice Gamekeeper and allowing the professors to tutor him so that he could complete his NEWTs, as well as his Mastery in Care of Magical Creatures, while he was working there.

She became a little emotional as she explained that in early Eighteen Ninety Eight, her Great Nephew Gellert Grindlewald became her ward after he was expelled from Durmstrang because his parents had died from a bout of Dragon Pox a couple of years earlier. There was little communication between the schools in those days, so he was accepted at Hogwarts, even though he had been expelled because even the Headmaster and staff of _Durmstrang_ believed that his experiments were too dark to be countenanced. Even though he had managed to secure a betrothal to the only child of a rich but junior Noble House by that stage, Albus took the younger boy as his lover and consort when he arrived at Hogwarts.

* * *

Albus and Gellert worked together on their plan to take their _rightful_ positions as wizards with great power over the Wizarding world. By normal standards, they were both intelligent and powerful wizards, and the cunning he'd acquired from his mother told Albus that they would need to divide and conquer the Wizarding world if they wanted to override the expected opposition, so he came up with a plan for an event to supposedly create a split between the two of them. That plan was for his useless sister to become collateral damage in an impromptu duel between the two friends. This would serve two purposes, first it would get rid of the embarrassment she caused with her outbreaks of wild magic, and provide a reason for the two of them to very publicly go their separate ways, Gellert would track down the Deathly Hallows that they needed to get the power to defeat the powers that be of their world, while he would establish himself as a pillar of strength and wisdom, he had already snared apprenticeships with impressionable masters of a number of subjects which would allow him to gain masteries in a number of fields and establish his reputation as a notable Wizarding scholar.

While that was a good plan, he hadn't counted on his family messing it up. His mother had been concerned about Ariana and interrupted them just before they killed her, and the sounds of spellfire drew Aberforth into the altercation as well. This made it escalate into enough of a battle to come to the Aurors' attention and Gellert had only just managed to escape being captured. Albus thought that it had actually worked out quite well in the end, a public incident to create a split between him and Gellert and his mother and siblings no longer in any position to cause him trouble, but then he discovered that his brother wasn't dead, he was in St Mungo's and they were confident that he would recover. Shite! That could ruin everything!

He rushed to St Mungo's, but there was no way of finishing Aberforth off without drawing suspicion upon himself, so Albus altered his brother's memories to show that Ariana had another violent outburst of accidental magic that killed their mother, which led to their argument with Gellert when he said that Ariana was dangerous and needed to be in St Mungo's where she couldn't harm anyone else, which in turn escalated into a fight that left Ariana dead, him in St Mungo's and Gellert on the run from the Aurors.

Aberforth fought the false memories and that had led to a physical altercation at their mother and sister's funeral. There had been too many people at the funeral to remove the event from everyone's memories so he just solidified the implanted memory of Ariana accidentally killing their mother and the subsequent fight, expanding it to show that he blamed Albus for Ariana's death in that fight. He kept the broken nose Aberforth gave him at the funeral to reinforce the story, and because he thought it made him look more roguish and dashing.

* * *

The next year his betrothed came of age to marry when she turned sixteen and they were wed, making the Dumbledore Family the Minor House of Dumbledore. When her father died it would become the _Noble_ House of Dumbledore, and even if his wife would be the one who actually held the title until his Heir was old enough to take it, he would be able to claim the title of _Lord_ Dumbledore. He went through the unpleasant necessity of consummating the marriage enough times for her to become pregnant and then promptly forgot about her as he used her dowry to build the House of Dumbledore into what it was meant to be.

Aurelius Dumbledore was born in 1901, but his sixteen year old mother died in childbirth. Her father was furious that his daughter had died as a result of being forced to have a baby before she was ready and as testing of the baby showed no latent magic at all, so he appeared to be a Squib, called for the disillusion of her marriage to Albus Dumbledore, cutting off all ties and reclaiming _everything_ that had been granted to Dumbledore Family with his daughter's hand.

Dumbledore had to sell the house in Godric's Hollow to repay the dowry, because he had already spent much of it. And he traded Aurelius to a childless American couple for a family heirloom that he sensed was actually a magical artefact because he had no use for a squib son who couldn't be used to keep the title and dowry he'd married the child's mother for.

For the next ten or fifteen years, Albus Dumbledore concentrated on manipulating memories and doctoring records to cover up his failures and build the image that he needed for his and Gellert's plans. While in Paris one time with Gellert, he stumbled across Nicolas and Perenelle Flamel's trail and managed to engineer a meeting that he could use to induce the famous Alchemist to take him on as his apprentice for an Alchemy Mastery. He was never anything more than mediocre as an Alchemist, but once he had a foot in the door he had little trouble manipulating the Flamels and others so that he gained his mastery.

After that, he returned to Hogwarts as he had decided that moulding the next generation would be the best way to establish his reputation, and it was easier to manipulate the authorities in Magical Britain. The only role open at Hogwarts at the time that he could pull off was the Defence Against the Dark Arts Master, so he took that. He tried to get rid of his brother numerous times, but the Headmaster was no fool and he remembered quite well that Aberforth had had to take a job as an Apprentice Gamekeeper at Sixteen to finish his education because his puffed up peacock of a brother was using all the family money to maintain his own image so he squashed all his efforts. Professor Black informed Armando Dippet of _Professor_ Dumbledore's campaign to have his brother fired when he took over as Headmaster, so it didn't work with him either.

Over the next thirty years or so, Albus managed to get the more prestigious Transfiguration Master and Deputy Headmaster roles, and build a reputation as a noted scholar in Transfiguration and other fields. He also managed to get himself made one of Magical Britain's ICW representatives so that he had an excuse to go to Europe more often to see his lover.

* * *

In Thirty Nine he went to a Muggle Orphanage to introduce one of the boys there to their world, a deliciously twisted little morsel by the name of Tom Riddle. He decided when the boy was sorted into Slytherin that he would allow Horace Slughorn to play with him as well while he was at Hogwarts, so long as it was understood that he would ultimately belong to himself and Gellert.

Albus had often had trouble keeping himself from laughing out loud at Dippet and the other fools when they fell for his spiel about the Greater Good being the only thing that could hold back the dark, especially when he was using it to mould Riddle and a few other students who were powerful enough to be useful and not unduly handicapped by morals into what he wanted them to be…. Like convincing Dippet to send Riddle back to that orphanage every break to ensure that the boy didn't go soft on Muggles. After all, the 'Greater Good' needed him to understand that Muggles were the enemy if he was to become an able lieutenant for himself and Gellert when they took their positions as the Leaders of the Magical World….

Bathilda broke off at this point to explain that Albus had often made a point of telling her everything he'd done and was planning to do just before he manipulated her memories, as that meant that he could complain or boast about everything without risking the stories getting out, and he got her to put his fabricated stories into her 'history' books. However, after her mind was healed of all his manipulations, everything he had told her going back to around the turn of the century in his boasting and complaints had come back to her.

Another boy started at Hogwarts a few years after Riddle, a Part-Giant by the name of Rubeus Hagrid… Bathilda glared at Albus again, saying that Rubeus was _officially_ classed as a Half-Giant but it was his mother Fridwulfa who was the Half-Giantess…. Her great nephew had recreated the ancient troll breeding process by setting up a witch to be raped by a Giant sometime around Nineteen Ten and she died bearing Fridwulfa, then the Great Albus Dumbledore had bred Fridwulfa to a wizard in the late Twenties because he and Gellert wanted people who could get the Giants on their side. Olympe Maxime, the Part-Giantess Headmistress at Beauxbatons, was another result of Gellert's breeding experiments… As was Filius Flitwick, though he was actually the result of a Common Goblin renegade of the Flitwick Family that Gellert had turned being mated to a witch who's mind Albus had manipulated in the Twenties to breed someone to act as an intermediary with the Goblins.

Young Rubeus had proven too intelligent and magically strong for the type of tool they wanted though so Albus had bound his intelligence, memory retention and magical strength down to that of an average student and then used the family mind magics to induce Armando Dippet to accept him as a student at Hogwarts. When Rubeus showed an interest in and affinity with magical creatures in his Third Year at Hogwarts, Albus arranged for him to 'find' the egg of a wild Acromantula and twisted his love for magical creatures into one for the more dangerous kinds, reasoning that he could be even more useful if he could also be used to induce dark creatures to help them.

* * *

In early Forty Five, Albus had a falling out with Gellert, because he believed that Gellert was planning to go ahead with _their_ plan without him. There was a lot of outrage about what Gellert and his followers were doing in Europe at the time, so Albus decided to remind him that their plan was to rule _together_. He knew that he couldn't defeat Gellert in an outright confrontation, as Gellert had been more powerful than him before he….. _acquired_ ….. the Elder Wand in the late Twenties, so he went to him as his long term lover… and then cursed him while he was thoroughly sated and laying there in a happy daze….. When Gellert was revived he was in a cell (which he later discovered was in Nurmengard) surrounded by runes to suppress his magic, and the Elder Wand and everything else had been taken from him. That was where he stayed until the day he was tried and executed forty odd years later, and the only visitor he ever got was Albus coming for his conjugal visits at least four or five times a year.

Albus was happy, as his plans were back on track and he was being hailed as a Leader of the Light (a catchy little title he'd thought up himself), and the Greatest Wizard since Merlin. He also knew that he wasn't likely to get another chance like this any time soon, being hailed as the saviour of the Wizarding World as he was. He hadn't even had to do anything to get himself awarded the Order of Merlin, First Class, which in turn elevated the Dumbledore Family to a Minor House and gave him a Wizengamot seat again. Never one to pass up an opportunity like that, he used a bit of judicious memory manipulation to make everyone forget that he'd lost his seat and Minor House status back in 1901 and have vague memories of him being a quiet and dependable Wizengamot member for the last fifty years or so.

It was actually Horace Slughorn who gave him the opportunity he needed to take his place as a major figure in the Magical World. Unbeknownst to him, young Tom Riddle had researched his own Wizarding history and found Gaunts' claims to be the descendants of Salazar Slytherin (they weren't, they were descended from one of his Squib sisters, but they had acquired some Slytherin family traits like being Parselmouths). That in turn had led to him discovering Salazar's Chamber of Secrets and the mind magics that Albus had secretly taught him had let him get control of the Basilisk in the Chamber, which had been Salazar's Familiar when he died a crazy man. Albus was by then aware that the Chamber of Secrets had been opened and he had a good idea that it was Tom, but he was taking it slowly to avoid scaring the boy off before he could get into the Chamber of Secrets and plunder it.

What Horace had done though was tell Tom about some of the more arcane Dark Arts in an attempt to seduce the boy, and one of those was the ritual required to create a soul anchor called a horcrux. This ritual required the murder of an innocent to be successfully completed, and Tom had decided that, as he was the Heir of Slytherin (Yeah, right!), that it would be more meaningful if the innocent used to create his first horcrux was killed by Salazar's familiar. That was why he engineered a situation for a virgin Mudblood witch from Ravenclaw to be taunted by another student until she ran crying into the girls' toilets where the access tunnels from the Chamber of Secrets came into the castle, and then called Salazar's familiar to the toilets and ordered it to kill her.

Tom had been shocked by how much impact having his soul ripped in two and one half being transferred to the artefact he'd prepared to be used as his first soul anchor had on him, but he managed to close the entrance to the access tunnels and get away from the toilets before anyone saw him there. The girl's body was found soon enough but even though she was nothing but a Mudblood, the Headmaster ordered a full investigation. Tom always made sure he knew what was going on in the castle, so he knew that that Hufflepuff Half-Breed Hagrid was secretly raising an Acromantula. It wasn't difficult to confront him and accuse him of opening the Chamber of Secrets and his pet of killing the girl, throwing enough spells the creature's way to make it run off…. Because if anyone actually thought things out they'd realise that there was no way for an Acromantula to have killed the girl without leaving a mark, but if Hagrid's pet had disappeared, there was no way of proving that it had been an Acromantula.

On Tom's word, Rubeus was expelled and his wand snapped. The Headmaster also wanted him sent to Azkaban at Fourteen for killing the girl (as Halfbreeds were even lower than Mudbloods in traditional Purebloods' eyes), but Albus still had plans for Hagrid and saw this as a way to get rid of his brother who was always watching him suspiciously. Therefore Albus dug up the charms to transfigure some goats into living sex dolls and spent some time taking them violently until they were broken and bleeding, then inserted the memories into his brother and called the Aurors.

The scandal of Hogwarts' Gamekeeper turning out to be a sex fiend who did unnatural things with goats took all the attention off of Hagrid, and once Aberforth had been sent to Azkaban in his place, Albus convinced Dippet to take Hagrid on as an Apprentice Gamekeeper and got the Gamekeeper who Aberforth had taken over from to come out of retirement long enough to teach the boy the ropes.

Albus then used the fact that Dippet had failed to prevent a student being murdered inside the castle to get him fired and take over from him, and used that prestigious position and the supporters he'd been cultivating ever since he started at Hogwarts to get himself made Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot of Magical Britain. The elevation of his position in Magical Britain and his fame as the Vanquisher of Grindelwald also got him elected as the Supreme Mugwump of the International Confederation of Wizards, so his star had risen quite quickly.

* * *

Things had gone fairly quietly for Albus over the next twenty five years or so, in Fifty Five the Gamekeeper had retired again and Hagrid took over as Gamekeeper. Albus used the Elder Wand to repair his wand and transfigure it into a child's brolly, manipulating Hagrid's memories to show that he'd kept the pieces of his wand and somehow did it himself in secret. Albus didn't regard the oaf having a wand as a major threat, as with the cold iron umbrella ribs interfering with the magic it was rather less effective than it had been before, and he'd placed a compulsion on Ollivander to make sure that he gave him a wand that wasn't a good match for him in the first place.

Tom was building his following in this period, using the same principles as Gellert had, and Albus saw this as an opportunity to create the scenario that he and Gellert had been working towards, but with him keeping enough power to control the situation this time. In the mid Sixties he'd engineered the creation of more potential liaisons with dark creatures. He'd gotten a number of children of respected and solid families without any real power bitten by werewolves and vampires and then sat back to see how many of them survived being turned and showed enough potential to be useful.

Unfortunately, of all the candidates, only one boy, Remus Lupin, showed any real promise for becoming a useful liaison after he was turned into a werewolf. Therefore Albus had the rest of them eliminated and set things up at Hogwarts to allow the boy's monthly transformations to happen in controlled circumstances, so that he could be allowed to attend school and get a proper magical education, starting in 1970. He milked the boy's parents for all the financial and political support he could get out of them of course, but the main point was to mould the boy into a faithful servant who could talk the werewolf packs around to his side.

He had a few other plans in play for the students who would be starting with Lupin though. Tom pretty much controlled the current crowd in Slytherin through their parents, and Albus wasn't going to lose the fortunes of the richest houses to him without a fight, so he used the Elder Wand to place strong compulsions on the Sorting Hat to force the Heirs to the Houses of Potter and Black into Gryffindor rather than Slytherin like their parents. Lupin would also be going into Gryffindor to ensure that he would be befriended by Potter and Black and they would learn how caring and enlightened the great Albus Dumbledore was, and there was a fourth boy, mousey little Peter Pettigrew, who would be placed there with them as his eyes and ears to make sure that he knew everything that went on around the Heirs to the Houses of Potter and Black.

Myrddin got him back for forcing it to place those four boys in Gryffindor though, because the best placement for James Charlus Potter and Remus John Lupin would have been Ravenclaw, Sirius Orion Black was fifty/fifty Slytherin or Gryffindor and Peter Cyril Pettigrew had none of the qualities of any of the Houses so by rights he should have been one of Helga's charity placements in Hufflepuff. That was why Myrddin decided to upset the applecart a little.

While by the current classifications in Magical Britain, Lily Rose Evans was supposedly a Muggleborn, she was in fact the _true_ Heir of Salazar Slytherin. Her thirst for knowledge made her well suited to Ravenclaw and with her sense of fair play and justice she would have fitted into Hufflepuff well too... But she was full of fire and a drive to fight injustice and thanks to the Headmaster's machinations the biggest festering mess of injustice in Hogwarts at the moment was in Gryffindor, so that was where Myrddin put her. Myrddin was especially glad that it hadn't put her in the house she had the highest claim to rule over when he sorted Severus Tobias Snape there, because that bitter and twisted individual had been so obsessed with her that he believed he had some claim over her, so she wouldn't have had a moment's rest in their quarters.

(Myrddin has also happy that the accepted Lord Gryffindor was exempted from the restrictions against telling anyone but the student in question about their sorting, as this meant that he could let him in on the secret that Albus Percival Dumbledore had in fact been placed in _Slytherin_ , _not_ Gryffindor as all the books stated. Myrddin was well aware of how much time and effort Albus Dumbledore had put into doctoring all the written records and people's memories to prevent the fact that he had been in Slytherin effecting the image he was trying to sell the Magical World on and was happy to scuttle those efforts. He also enjoyed telling Lord Gryffindor about the very profitable scam Dumbledore had run for about forty years, getting paid to give his supporters with money's sons and daughters private sortings in his office for a fee to ensure that they didn't get embarrassed in front of everyone in the Great Hall. If the private sorting didn't give them the results they wanted and they had a big enough purse, he would guarantee the child was sorted into whatever house they wanted if they paid enough…. And for that matter it wasn't unusual for him to compel Myrddin to announce an unacceptable house at the private sorting to ensure that they would pay up to get their children into another house.

That so-called Ravenclaw peacock Gilderoy Evelyn Lockhart was the worst. Lockhart definitely had nothing that made him qualified to be in Ravenclaw, though it could be argued that he had rat cunning and enough ambition to drive him to agree to anything if it got him ahead, which made him suited for Slytherin, but the Headmaster had been paid quite a bit by his family to force him to be placed in Ravenclaw because being known as a Ravenclaw would give him a much better reputation than he would have as a Slytherin. But those 'private lessons' he was getting on the Headmaster's desk meant that he was learning the Dumbledore Family mind magic, just as Tom Riddle had. Snape didn't know how lucky he was as he got training in the Dumbledore Family mind magic without having to endure those 'private lessons' because he wasn't pretty enough.

Myrddin enjoyed hearing about how they investigated Lockhart after he told Lord Gryffindor about the mind magic and when he was tried for the numerous crimes that he thought he'd wiped out all evidence of by obliviating his victims, he was stripped of his magic and thrown into Azkaban for life. Everything belonging to him and the Lockhart Family was forfeited to his victims and the Lockhart Family was eradicated in Magical Britain because he'd become the Head of the Family.)

* * *

Myrddin's revenge did quite a good job of upsetting Dumbledore's plans, because placing Lily Evans in Gryffindor placed a blazing star right in front of James Potter and Sirius Black so they couldn't miss her. Dumbledore's plan had been to have those two in Gryffindor where he'd made sure that there should be no-one to attract their attention, and the now established culture of dog eat dog inter-house competition should keep them from establishing relationships with witches from other houses. The Potters traditionally rejected the Noble practice of betrothals for their sons and daughters and the scuttlebutt about Sirius Black was that he, like his Grandfather the current Duke Black, was most likely to reject the beliefs of his parents, so the houses _they_ were aligned with would not be likely to allow their daughters to be betrothed him unless he changed his beliefs. This should have meant that all Dumbledore had to do was keep them isolated from outside influences and mould them in to the soldiers he wanted, then have them leave everything to him when they died fighting for the mighty cause…. And of course by then they would have taken over as heads of their houses and therefore be in charge of the house fortunes.

Lily Evans was a problem though, as her beauty, fire and brilliance enchanted James Potter as soon as he met her, and Sirius Black was drawn to her charms as well so Dumbledore had to ensure that their behaviour repulsed her. He also manipulated the girl to make her blind to her childhood friend Severus Snape's seriously flawed personality and stay close friends with him, making him and Potter and Black hated enemies to ensure that they would clash all the time and keep driving a wedge between Evans and Potter, and Black as well. By third year though, he had had to start teaching Snape enough of the Dumbledore mind magics to let him to cover up the mistakes he made in front of Evans, but then he ruined everything by dropping all his shields and letting Evans see him as he truly was when he lashed out at her in Fifth Year and called her a filthy Mudblood.

That was when Albus discovered that Evans had been learning how to protect her mind, and that she was so strong that he couldn't break though her protections to remove her memories of what she'd seen in Snape, any more than he could remove Potter's deep seated knowledge that she was the one he lived for. Evans' parents and adopted sister had no such protections though and while he could do no more than implant doubts about the direction their daughter was heading in in her parents' minds, he did quite a good job of twisting the adopted sister's jealousy and spite into full blown hatred, and did even better with the simple minded oaf that she took up with because he hated anyone who was better than him.

From that point, all he could do was place compulsions on her, Potter and Black to try and force them apart, but what he didn't realise was that Remus Lupin was telling her what Potter was really like while they were on their prefect patrols together, and Lily's brilliant mind started to smell a rat. That was why she gave Remus the books she'd used to learn how to protect her mind and encouraged him and his friends to learn how to protect themselves as well. They discussed what to do about Pettigrew, because neither of them trusted him the way that James and Sirius seemed to, but they agreed that Remus would have to talk to the others about including him in private. When he did so, they didn't see any way of excluding him without him seeing what they were doing so he learned how to protect his mind as well, something that came back to bite them in a few short years. As James and Sirius worked on learning to protect their minds, their behaviour became less extreme and James and Lily grew closer, but they kept up the pretence of being at odds with each other in public, so Dumbledore had felt safe in giving Potter the Head Boy's position in Seventh Year. He couldn't stop Evans being Head Girl because she was the most outstanding student Hogwarts had had in living memory, but he was sure that they couldn't stand each other so he decided that he could afford to build himself up in Potter's eyes by rewarding him over everyone else with the Head Boy's position.

Of course that didn't work out at all the way that Dumbledore had planned, because they had become a betrothed couple by Samhain to give Evans the protection of the Most Noble and Most Ancient House of Potter. Dumbledore tore into Pettigrew for not telling him about Potter and Evans getting closer but the idiot boy just said that no-one had told him anything about it. That made it obvious that Pettigrew was no longer a core member of that group, but at least he hadn't been pushed out as yet so Dumbledore decided to use him in a wider plan by getting him accepted into Tom's core group of followers like the Snape boy. Pettigrew didn't have any real talent like Snape's Potions ability to make him interesting to Tom, but already having an Animagus form should be useful enough to make Tom take him.

As he had acquired a Potions Mastery like he had his other masteries, Dumbledore offered Snape a Potions apprenticeship as a bribe to get him to brew the more complex loyalty and other potions he needed to manipulate Potter, Black and Evans, now that they'd learned to protect their minds against him.

* * *

After they finished at Hogwarts, Dumbledore recruited Potter, Black, Evans and Pettigrew into his Order of the Phoenix to ensure that he still had enough access to them to keep up the compulsions and potions he was using to keep them under his control. He had used a virulent and untreatable form of dragonpox to kill off Potter's parents in Seventy Seven, and his Uncle and Aunt in Seventy Nine, so he implanted the fear that they had contracted the dragonpox at Potter Manor to convince the Potters to move into a cottage in Godric's Hollow after the new Lady Potter became pregnant and he'd set up a 'prophecy' that supposedly related to their unborn son and 'Lord' Voldemort. He'd also convinced Potter that going to Gringotts or the Ministry or having Potter elves or familiars around would lead Voldemort's people to them and set up wards to mask their magical signatures and separate them from the loyal Potter retainers, so he managed to keep them largely ignorant of the protections the House of Potter could give them.

It was pure luck that Frank and Alice Longbottom, who were both Aurors like Potter and Black (he had his suspicions about Evans, as Slughorn had been boasting about her getting her Potions Mastery just after her NEWTs and when he checked she'd obtained her Charms and Runes Masteries at the same time…. But they never talked about her having a job, and people of that calibre with no obvious job were often unspeakables), had a son due around the same time as the Potters. This meant that he could manipulate both families into positions where Tom could get to them, because he'd made sure that the 'prophecy' was given to him somewhere that Snape would hear the first half of it before he was chased off and of course he ran straight to Tom with what he'd heard.

It wasn't too hard to convince both couples that the best way to protect their families was the Fidelius Charm. With Evans' mind he needed to distance himself a little, but they'd been potioned and compelled to trust Pettigrew and it hadn't be hard to point any suspicions about who was leaking the Order's secrets to Voldemort at Black, as the son of a known dark family, and Lupin as a werewolf so Pettigrew was the Potter's secret keeper and he was the Longbottom's secret keeper, so Snape had 'accidentally' gotten his hands on a piece of parchment with their secret written on it.

He set it up for Tom to strike on Samhain, or rather Halloween because he supposedly used the Muggle festivals now. The wards on the Potters' cottage, the Potters themselves and their brat all had monitoring charms placed on them and he had a portkey ready to take the Half-Breed there and get rid of any evidence that could be traced back to him before the Aurors got there. He had something similar set up for the Longbottoms, but he'd used Snape and Pettigrew to convince Tom that the Potter brat was a bigger threat so he'd go after them first, because with all of them gone the Potter fortune would be up for grabs and he had a will that Potter had signed in blood that said that it would all go to support the fight against Voldemort.

Once again, it didn't work out at all the way he'd planned because Evans (presumably) had managed to put some form of protection over the brat which saved him. He quickly changed the Half-Breed's instructions to grab the brat and bring him straight back (along with removing the more questionable devices used for monitoring them) and sent him off. He didn't think anyone but the brat would be there, as the monitors were only showing him alive there, but the brat and his monitors were more important than the Half-Breed if any of Tom's people came for him.

When the Half-Breed returned on Black's enchanted Muggle motorcycle Dumbledore knew that he was in trouble, so he quickly gave the Aurors the story that Black was the Potters' secret keeper and he had obviously turned and become one of Voldemort's followers because he'd led him straight to them. He changed the Half-Breed's memories and sent him off while he examined the brat. The fact that Tom had somehow made him into some form of soul anchor when he tried to kill him gave him the seeds of a new idea, but he had to fob McGonagall off with a story about the brat needing the protection of the blood of family, and Evans' sister was the only blood relation he had left, so he would have to go to her to protect him from Voldemort. McGonagall obviously didn't like that idea, but he didn't find out until he arrived to set things up the next day that she'd taken it upon herself to go and investigate Lily's sister's family before the boy was placed with them.

Using the Elder Wand, it wasn't too hard to compel her to leave Privet Drive with a different set of memories while he set up the blood wards. Everyone was told that these wards were meant to protect the brat from Voldemort and anyone else who had evil intentions towards him, but they were actually to mask his magical signature so that the Potter elves and familiars couldn't find him, and to ensure that his Aunt and her family wouldn't go soft on him, he needed the brat to be broken and weak when he arrived at Hogwarts so that he could get his plan back on track. He'd also bound the brat's memory, intellect and magic enough to make him into an idiot Squib who couldn't do anything to fight back.

Everyone knew how Dumbledore had illegally bound the Potters' wills and proclaimed himself Harry Potter's Magical Guardian to try and get his hands on the Potter votes and fortune, but the Goblins had kept him away from their fortune and magic had refused to accept him as the guardian so he'd forced through manual procedures to use their votes. They also heard that he'd gone back to Harry Potter's Muggle relatives' home several times over the next six years to renew the bindings because the young Duke Potter's magic had kept growing and breaking free of its bindings. They also knew about how he, Bagnold and Crouch had had the Black Heir thrown into Azkaban for over six years without a trial or even investigation and how the Longbottoms had been attacked and cursed into what was believed to be a permanently insensible state until they were retrieved from St Mungo's and restored to healthy minds, bodies and souls. The fact that he'd placed the Death Eater who gave the so-called prophecy about the Potter and Longbottom Heirs to Voldemort in a position of power to abuse and denigrate the children of Magical Britain for six years, and he'd effectively ruined the potions training in Magical Britain caused more of an outrage, because it had effected all of their children except for some who were placed in Slytherin and Ravenclaw.

* * *

Bathilda's testimony wound up around the point where Dumbledore stopped being the Chief Warlock, because that was when the memory charms he had used to manipulate her for nearly a century were removed. Amelia acknowledged that Albus Jones could not be prosecuted for his criminal activities prior to his being removed as the Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot of Magical Britain, but reiterated that the purpose of that had been to establish the true nature of the so-called 'Leader of the Light' and 'the Greatest Wizard since Merlin' which were both in fact titles he had given himself. She pointed out that it was only the power of the Elder Wand, which he cursed his lover in the back to get after distracting him with sex, that allowed him to pull off 'the Greatest Wizard since Merlin', because without the advantage of that wand he was not a very strong wizard, and the majority of his OWL, NEWT and Mastery scores had been falsified. The only thing he was ever a true master of was mind magics, and now that the Dumbledore Family magic been stripped from him because it had agreed with the last worthy member of the Dumbledore Family, his brother Aberforth, he didn't even have that. The Elder Wand had been recalled by its true master and sent off to another realm that only he could call it from so Albus Jones had now been reduced to what he truly was, a mediocre fraud who barely knew enough to teach a few subjects at Hogwarts, and wouldn't be accepted as a teacher under the new standards that Hogwarts required.

With that, Amelia began calling witnesses to testify about Albus Jones' criminal activities _since_ he was dismissed as the Chief Warlock. They'd already heard that he had been the primary driver behind the revival of the Triwizard Tournament, the contest that had been abolished nearly two hundred years ago because of the toll the pointless deaths in the tournament were taking on the best and brightest of Magical Europe. Once they ripped the truth out of his head that confirmed that he and the ones he had been working with had been doing this to kill off Harry Potter and Fleur Delacour and their families, they made sure that they had every other name and fact he knew in regard to the plots behind the tournament and against Magical Britain, stripped his magic from him and put him through the Veil of Death before losing his magic could kill him. This was to ensure that he was truly gone, because even if he had managed to get some sort of safeguards in place, once you go through the Veil you don't come back unless Death chooses to release your soul as it did Harry's.

 **AN: Quite possibly a little dry, sorry, but I wanted to get my vision of what Ankles Dumbledore was really like out. Hopefully this meshes well enough with the events of canon to work. I know I've shifted a few dates a little, but who's to know what Dumbledore fed Bathilda was right? ;^)**

 **BTW: When Aberforth got out of Azkaban, he got a job working at the Hogs Head in Hogsmeade to keep an eye on his brother because he knew what the 'Leader of the Light' was really like, even if he couldn't get anyone else to believe him.**

 **NB: According to the latest Fantastic Beasts movie,** **Aurelius Dumbledore was the birth name of** **Creedence Barebone, Leta Lestrange switched him for her brother with accidental magic on the boat to America as a child because her brother wouldn't stop crying.  
**

 **AN2: As some may have noted, I've stopped removing the so-called 'guest reviews' to shut up the trolls who claim that I was trying to cover up anyone who didn't agree with me. I'll only remove things which would IMHO be bad enough to really offend decent people on here.**


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